Fuwa Fuwa whips up ‘fluffy fluffy’ fun for all
Japanese pancake recipe took more than a year to perfect, but now has its happy place
Toronto can sometimes be a bummer, with its high rents, traffic snarls and unreliable sports teams.
Something local to be happy about: fluffy pancakes. Specifically, the Japanese soufflé pancakes of Fuwa Fuwa, newly opened on Bloor St. W. at Brunswick Ave.
“In Japan, people eat pancakes and it makes them happy, and we wanted to bring the same happiness to the people of Toronto,” says co-owner Benson Lau, 27
He runs this place with Yuka Naka, 24, who’s actually from Osaka, the birthplace of this style of pancake, which is traditionally served as a wedding dessert.
Apparently, the roundness and fluffiness of this style of pancake makes you happy and that bodes well for a new marriage.
The name of the restaurant itself means “fluffy fluffy.” And they are. The egg heavy batter is meant to fall between a cake-like pancake and an egg soufflé.
The egg whites in the pancake get whipped to white peaks before being folded into the batter. Both the batter and each pancake are made fresh, hence the process takes as long as 20 minutes — longer if there’s a line, which there often is.
“We put in a lot of work to make it right and happy for our customers,” says Lau.
They whip up delights such as the very popular Tiramisu Pancake, $14.50, which comes with two pancakes, tiramisu cream, and coffee syrup you pour yourself (for fun, and also for the social media photo and video).
The Crème Brûlée Pancake, $15.80, has a caramelized top, a rich sauce and a small scoop of perfect ice cream.
The shop actually sells just six pancake creations — including the traditional strawberries, blueberries and bananas, called the Fuwa Fuwa Signature, $12.50 — and Lau and Naka designed each dish carefully. (Fuwa Fuwa also serves drinks, Japanese roll cakes and egg pudding.)
Each pancake dish is all about balance: the firm crunch of the crème brûlée topping contrasts with the soft pancake, and the bitter coffee works against the sweet cream in the tiramisu.
Meanwhile, the batter itself took more than a year to perfect.
Lau was tinkering with the batter back in 2017 when he was studying at the Cordon Bleu in Tokyo. Friends introduced him to Naka, who had trained as a chef in Osaka and was working at a pancake shop in Tokyo. This style of dessert is so huge there the best shops have lineups as soon as they open.
“I love pancakes,” says Naka, claiming they make her happy.
Lau told Naka he wanted to open his own shop, but do it in Toronto, where he had visited once, and had family. He was born in Hong Kong and raised in California, and had decided Toronto was the kind of inclusive place he wanted to live.
Naka also had family here, and wanted to work on her English and open a business. Both moved here in late 2017 and started looking for a space. The Annex turned out to be perfect: lots of foot traffic, numerous sushi and other Asian restaurants nearby, and a diverse customer base keen to try new things. Fuwa Fuwa opened in mid- May and has been hopping ever since.
Giving away free pancakes on the long weekend really heated things up, with lineups snaking down Bloor and 1,000 free pancakes served. That’s a lot of happy.