Fugetsu-Do Bakery Shop — Restaurant in Los Angeles

I've been a loyal customer of Fugetsu-Do for the last two years, as I'm always wanting to support a local family-run business in Little Tokyo and am a big mochi fan. I went 3/10 Sunday morning and had the worst experience I've had at Fugetsu-Do to date.

I walked in excited to buy some mochi for myself and a friend I was visiting later that day. The store employees were standing there chatting in the corner. It was obvious they noticed me, but continued chatting. Okay, that's fine. It wasn't until I stood there at the cases for a while that one of them even bothered to come over as if they suddenly decided my presence was bothering them.

After I ordered four pieces of mochi, I gave the employee a $20 bill for around $10 worth of mochi. The guy took it and handed me change for what would have been a $10 bill. I told him I gave him $20, and he insisted that it was $10.

I literally paid with cash at another restaurant before and remembered from that encounter that I had a $20 bill in my wallet, which is what I had handed over.

The guy then took out a random $10 bill from the register and said, "This is the bill you gave me." Um, okay? How am I supposed to know that that wasn't exactly what I thought it was -- a random $10 bill from the register? Despite my comments about having given him a $20 bill, it was very evident that he was unwilling to believe me and was not going to give any money back. That was just not an option he was going to consider.

At this point, he probably sensed me getting upset. That was when he said that if I came back at around 6 pm, around store closing time, that was when they would count the cash in the register and could see if I had given him a $20 bill or not. Or, he said, I could just leave my phone number and they would call me at the end of the day if they discovered that I had indeed given him $20.

Three things :

1. I'm not from the area and traveled to Little Tokyo to meet my friend. I'm not going to stay around the area until store closing time -- that's literally eight hours -- or travel back around 6 pm on the very small, minimal chance that the employees MIGHT give me $10 back. I don't have access to the register and can’t count for myself. How am I supposed to know that they'll count the money and not just say again at the end of the day, like they were saying, that I hadn't given them $20? Then I would have had to rearrange my whole schedule for that day for nothing.

2. Why couldn't you just count it at that moment? Why would you need to wait until the end of the day? There weren't any other customers at that time; I was the only one.

3. In my opinion, saying that I could just leave my number feels like a cop-out. How am I supposed to know you'll count the money and call me if you discover an error? The store employees could count the money, discover an error, and just not call me at all. And I'd never know.

What struck me the most about this whole situation is the employee's unwillingness to trust me, the customer. He kept insisting that it was a $10 bill and provided no solutions as to how we could figure out any confusion at that moment, except for a bunch of talk about waiting until the end of the day to potentially see. The attitude just left a really sour taste in my mouth and I walked out with the resignation that there was no way I was going to get my $10 back.

The people pleaser in me who's afraid of confrontation was hesitant to leave a review about this, but honestly, I really regret just leaving like everything was fine when it obviously wasn't. This experience at Fugetsu-Do ruined the rest of my day and made me never want to come back to the shop. (I couldn't tell if it was because of this bad encounter or just a bad batch of mochi that day, but the mochi tasted very dry/stale as well). I still respect Fugetsu-Do as a historic Little Tokyo institution, but I don't think I'll...

While Japanese village plaza is one of my favorite places, this business ruined the pleasant experiences at all the other businesses that I have ever had. I made the worst decision to visit this store while walking back to my car. The male employee with glasses and covering his face with a black mask was one of the most passive aggressive and flat out rude jerk of an employee that I have ever met in my entire life! He was getting irritated that I was even there and asking him questions about the confectionery that I am not familiar with. The owner was giving tour to a privileged looking group and offering them taste samplers. This was right after I was told by the rude employee that they do not offer samplers. The female employee helped me check out on a single piece that I bought, and seemed to be behaving much better than the guy. I started eating that piece while in the store, to determine whether it would be worth to buy a box. The male employee harshly told me that I cannot eat there, which could have been conveyed in a courteous manner too. Unfortunately, he is ill mannered beyond repair. At that point I was so embarrassed with the owner as well as the group witnessing this, and told the employee that he is very rude and that I would rather throw it away because I don’t feel like eating it anymore. I was shell shocked when he told me sheepishly that yeah, you could leave!! The owner never intervened, and I walked out in shame. This is part of the Japanese village plaza that endorses COMMUNITY. Learn to treat all customers in the same manner, and convey your rules in a respectful and positive manner, before trying to brag about your confectionary making history!!! Everybody has a right to be treated equally, especially...

When we went on 5/29/21 they didn’t have a tent outside selling. There was a LONG line that took us at least 30 min. They only allow a limited number of ppl in the store at a time. And while your party pays, they ask the ppl not paying to wait outside so they can get the line moving. The staff is efficient but I have no idea why it takes so long. It’s a tiny store and there’s a lot of items. From random snacks and candy to their mochi case. I want to say that 99% of what they sell is their mochi so they should consolidate their store for the sake of efficiency and get rid of the random shaved ice machine sitting in the corner collecting dust. My opinion, I’ll get off my soap box now lol

Parking: Park in the streets if you can find a spot or pay for parking. I park at the lot across the street and just walk over.

Mochi: The softest and freshest mochi you can get anywhere! In addition to being cute, the flavor aren’t too sweet.

From time to time I like to get the rainbow ones to snack on. The texture is soft yet chewy.

I didn’t know they did fresh strawberry topped mochi so I was super excited to see them. You get like 1/4 slice of a strawberry on each mochi. But it looks nice. I miss the fresh fruit mochi from the San Jose area. I believe they are seasonal so def get them to try! If you leave them out for too long, the strawberry condensed and gets the mochi wet.

They can be quite pricy but worth it! I bought a box of 20 assorted along with 3 small boxes of assorted and it came out to just under $60. I brought them to a party and...