Mazazu Crepe

Restaurant: Mazazu Crepe
Cuisine: Japanese/Desserts/Ice Cream
Last visited: January 7, 2012
Location: Richmond, BC (Richmond Central)
Address: Unit 3110, 4151 Hazelbridge Way (In Aberdeen food court)
Train: Aberdeen Station Northbound
Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: FMF Must Try!

Food: 2
Service: n/a (food court)
Ambiance: n/a (food court)
Overall: 2
Additional comments:

• Franchise
• Japanese style crepes
• Crepes only
• Sweet and savoury crepes
• Made upon order
• Soft serve ice cream
• Snack
• Food on the go
• Budget friendly/cheap eats
• Lunch/Dinner

**Recommendations: Soft serve ice cream in a cone.

The Aberdeen Centre food court in Richmond, BC is one of my favourite shopping mall food courts in Metro Vancouver, let alone Richmond. It’s predominantly Asian cuisine with a random Vera’s Burger Shack. The set up is clean with a good variety and the prices are affordable. After Vietnamese food at Pho Lan I was up for dessert (no surprise there), and in the context of Richmond, this is actually one of my go-to places for it.

I’ve wanted to try Mazazu Crepe since it opened, but I always get distracted with Frappe Bliss (my fav) and Qoola. On this occasion I almost got distracted again, but I finally decided to just try the crepe and settle my curiosity once and for all. I wish I didn’t mean that so literally too.

Mazazu Crepe is a franchise in Japan under the name of Mother’s Crepe. It’s a crepe only shop, but it’s not your traditional French crepe so don’t expect authenticity. The crepes are basically wannabes of French crepes, but with the occasional Japanese toppings and ingredients. The franchise could be better in Japan, but it just didn’t work here.

The sweet crepes come with either custard, soft serve ice cream, whipped cream, strawberries, bananas, chocolate brownies (not house made), Japanese cheesecake, glutinous rice cakes or red bean. It’s actually just a switch up of the same ingredients so there’s really not much selection.

The savoury crepes include ham, cheese, tuna salad, hard boiled eggs and sausage. Again it’s just a switch up of limited ingredients so there is not much selection for savoury crepes either. All the crepes are around $3.50-4.95 and they’re quite large and cheap, and unfortunately so are the ingredients. You do pay for what you get.

Personally the crepes just came across as poor imitations of French style crepes. The only thing I would come back for is the soft serve ice cream, which I actually liked, but I’d ask for it in a waffle cone.

On the table:

I ordered the Green Tea Shiratama Azuki Soft Ice Cream crepe because it was the most unique, even though I dislike red bean.

This is what I got.

Green Tea Shiratama Azuki Soft Ice Cream – 2/6 (Okay)

• $4.95
• It’s served with your choice of milk, green tea or twist soft serve ice cream. I ordered twist.
• It’s only served wrapped up to-go and they don’t offer it served on plates.
• The crepe is made upon order so it was still warm.
• It’s filled with soft serve ice cream, glutinous rice balls, red bean, whipped cream and sprinkled with matcha powder.
• She tried alternating the layers, but there was only one scoop of red bean at the top.
• The whipped cream was really thick, rich and greasy and not that sweet, and I wasn’t digging it.
• The red bean paste (azuki) was really thick and creamy and pretty sweet, but I’ve never been a fan of red bean.
• There were some actual red beans in it and it wasn’t completely smooth. It’s actually not bad for what it was.
• The 3 glutinous rice balls (shiratama) were chewy, squishy and plain (naturally that way). They’re filling and dense and traditionally served with azuki.
• Shiratama have a very neutral flavour and they taste like nothing and they’re one texture throughout.
• I would have preferred mochi which is at least a bit sweet and lighter.

Needless to say, they were incredibly messy and drippy to eat. Soft service ice cream in a warm crepe ends up being a soggy mess. I love crepes and ice cream, but not like this.

• Even alone the crepe was not good and it was likely the only home made part.
• For a crepe place they should have nailed the crepe.
• The crepe was very thick and doughy and I could still taste the flour in the batter.
• The crepe batter wasn’t sweet or eggy and it just tasted like flour and water.
• It wasn’t crispy or browned at all and ended up being really chewy and almost stretchy.
• The best part was the soft serve green tea ice cream. I love soft serve ice cream in general though.
• The soft serve ice cream was quite light which I liked, but it was richer than McDonald’s soft serve which I still like!
• It wasn’t icy, overly rich, creamy or sweet (like Dairy Queen) and I would actually come back for it. I’d order it in a waffle cone next time for sure.
• The Milk flavoured soft serve ice cream is $2.86 and the Green Tea flavoured soft serve ice cream is $3.10.
• On a similar note, the best soft serve ice cream I’ve had so far was at Dessert Club, ChikaLicious.

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