FuFu Café — Restaurant in Houston

Firstly, If you’re Chinese, don’t come here.

I’m from a place known for soup dumplings in China, been eating them growing up, so I’ve been craving for soup dumplings, saw this place serve them, came here.

Ordered a portion of 4 dumplings, I usually eat it whole because it has soup in it; me and my friend each ate 1 and found it tasted fishy/not fresh in general. Called the server over, server asked another server, and the first thing she said over at their counter was “they ate 3 how can I refund them?” Ugh can you count? Then she came over and said, we can’t refund it because you ate. Huh? so how do we know if it’s bad if we didn’t eat it?

Then she continued saying, they sold so many soup dumplings and nobody complained and soup dumplings are supposed to taste like this. I can guarantee you no they’re not supposed to taste not fresh, whatever the seasoning might be.

She said they can refund half the price and I wanted to get it over with so I said okay, but she suddenly changed to that, they couldn’t refund us again, and needed us to order another dish. My friend wanted to try their pork ribs, and she sarcastically said, “oh I don’t think you should order that, the pork is also marinated and I’m afraid you can’t take it.” She’s so proud their pork is not fresh🙌🙌 sounds like we never eat fresh, marinated pork in our life🙌🙌 just fyi, I was eating a pork noodle dish at that moment, and I pointed it out to her that this pork dish tastes fine but she ignored me.

My friend ended up ordering it anyways we just wanted to leave, my friend tried one and it was NOT fresh, haha no surprise i guess.

Also the first impression of the restaurant, stood at the front door and nobody came serve/address our presence for a while, I wanted to leave but felt maybe I should just be patient (I should’ve left). And their tables are so greasy and had no tissue papers on the tables to wipe. So many red flags should’ve saved myself from...

My favorite, although only for a few dishes. Hot and spicy chicken is my go-to. Everything at this restaurant is served family style, and most menu items are about ten dollars and typically more than one person should eat. The hot and spicy chicken varies in heat a lot, depending on who is in the kitchen and how hot the most recent crop of peppers are. The picture menu is easy to browse and order from, but don't count on being able to converse with your server if you have questions. I've been here a lot, I've probably ordered a thing or two from every page on the menu, but I always tend to get the chicken and an order of vegetable fried rice (it's passable, if pricey), and occasionally a thai coffee or salt toasted tofu.

A word of caution to the adventurous, this place has a few items that sent me reeling. The tables are set up for it, but I'd avoid the hot pot based on one experience I had with a broth that neither I nor the four people sharing with me were pleased with. Also, there's some sort of tube stem vegetable in the menu that looks, smells, and quacks like hydrilla - the invasive stuff that clogs local lakes and waterways like some kind of aqua-kudzu.

The staff is just great, typically alert and smiling. They'll ask after people I've come with on prior visits, even if I've only brought someone by once or twice. The place is open as late as 2AM regularly, and when I order food for take-out during peak hours, it's typically ready within fifteen minutes. It's a pay at the back sort of place, and the half-dozen similar shops in the same strip center are typically half-deserted while this one is jam-packed. Give it a try, order what the regulars order, you'll...

While service has since improved, food still remained just mediocre. My co worker and I went here after a long day go work for some hot pot and banh bot chien. Both were equally disappointing. We got the beef and shrimp hotpot with a non spicy and spicy broth. The non spicy broth was extremely bland. I expected a little more savory and a little more salt? haha yeah it was watered down chicken broth. And the spicy side was slightly too spicy for me but the broth itself lacked salt as well. The vegetable platter looked very umm lifeless. Very minimal selections of veggies. The Lo mein that came with our hot pot was not please to the eye either. Rather too al dente and dry. The beef and shrimp looked really good but that was all that was. Looked great, taste didn't match. Beef was extremely tough. Thought it would just melt in your mouth kind of tenderness texture, especially when it was thinly sliced too. Not a big fan of the hot pot.

Banh bot chien didn't fair well either. We ordered 2 but I didn't get a picture of it because it came out after our hotpot, at this point we were already eating. Figured it was an appetizer item so it would be first to come out. It was way too thiccccc!! Like super dense. Excessive eggs. Didn't get the crispy crunchiness that I normally enjoy from a banh bot chien. Since it's so thick, it was quite heavy. I only manage to eat a few bites. The sauce was also lackluster. Not the typical sweet soy dipping sauce I'm used to.

We also got the fried innards. Not bad.

Overall food wasn't bad but it wasn't that great either. Service definitely was way better than before. Quick and timely. Service with a smile compared to most other Chinatown...