Think of a Japanese restaurant and Fuji invariably comes to mind, even with the parade of new players entering the market in recent years.
Hinewas brought to Thailand in 1981 by former Japanese banker Kenji Tanaka.
It has become one of the country's largest Japanese restaurant chains and a favourite among many Thais.
Today, parent company Fuji Group owns rice farms, rice mills, bakeries and other food-related companies that support the restaurant chain's operations.
Mrs Rawiwan joins company executives and guests to plant rice in Phan district, Chiang Rai province.
The first Fuji restaurant opened 35 years ago at CentralPlaza Lardprao shopping mall, but it turned out to be less successful than expected because Japanese food was not popular among Thais.
Mr Tanaka did not give up, sticking to his strong belief that Japanese food would one day become a staple like Thai food.
His perseverance paid off, and today Fuji has 99 branches across the country.
Rawiwan Tanaka, Mr Tanaka's daughter-in-law and co-managing director of Fuji Group, says widespread success in the domestic market has pushed Fuji into the regional market.
Fuji's ambition is to become a regional brand and perhaps, one day, a global brand.
Mr Tanaka, 73, is still handling overseas business negotiations himself, but day-to-day operation is run by younger executives including Mrs Rawiwan.
There are now seven Fuji restaurants outside of Thailand: four in Myanmar, two in Laos and one in Cambodia.
Fuji perceives the Japanese restaurant market in Thailand as approaching saturation. Plans call for further expansion abroad, with 10 new Fuji restaurants this year, including one more in Myanmar and up to two more in Cambodia.
"The overseas businesses are rather slow at the moment, but they are trending well, with sales gradually improving," Mrs Rawiwan says.
For the domestic market, the company will put more focus on opening restaurants upcountry, as Bangkok is crowded with Japanese restaurants.
The company plans to open 5-7 new restaurants in Thailand this year.
Founded in 1981, Fuji is one of the country's biggest Japanese restaurant chains.
"We never stopped opening new restaurants, not even during the financial crisis in 1997," Mrs Rawiwan recalls. "Then, nobody was brave enough to expand their business. But we saw an opportunity for cheap rental fees, so we opened many restaurants in that year. In fact, 1997 was a peak time for our restaurant openings."
Thirty-five years ago, there were fewer than 10 Japanese restaurants in Thailand; today there are more than 2,000.
Fuji seems to stand out among the crowd, at least based on the long line of customers waiting to be seated at almost all of its restaurants on a daily basis.
Its popularity is attributed to quality and fair pricing amid fierce competition in the over-300-billion-baht food industry in Thailand.
"We're a solid player in the market because we take more time than our competitors to build a working process for quality products," Mrs Rawiwan says. "Our prices are not cheap, but they are reasonable. We are not interested in a price war for short-term profit. We never compromise on food quality."
The restaurant previously served rice imported from Japan; but given the seasonal differences, the quality was inconsistent and customers complained.
Mr Tanaka solved the problem by creating a supply of Japanese rice in Thailand through subcontracting farms in Chiang Rai.
The company spent 300 million baht to build the country's largest rice mill, which is equipped with a silo system and a rice demonstration field.
"All equipment we use at our rice mill operates at an industrial scale, producing high-quality, A-grade rice," Mrs Rawiwan says. "Both Mr Tanaka and his wife have been fully involved in all processes at the rice mill."
The rice farm and the mill, created to maintain rice quality, have built permanent careers for farmers in Chiang Rai.
Japanese food has grown popular in Thailand, with more than 2,000 restaurants in business.
Starting from having a few rai of paddy fields, the rice farms have expanded to more than 2,000 rai in Chiang Rai through subcontract rice farming in the past five years.
The company is also using its rice farms to engage with customers who carry Fuji membership cards.
Through its customer relation management (CRM) programme, Fuji takes its customers to Chiang Rai to observe its rice farming processes.
Customer engagement through these farm visits, instead of focusing on sales and marketing promotions, is one of the things that differentiates Fuji from its rivals, Mrs Rawiwan says.
Fuji has become the go-to Japanese restaurant for Thais.
But 99 Fuji restaurants in 35 years is hardly a stretch compared with other food chains, she says.
"We open Fuji restaurants only at the right time and the right location," she insists. "Our fine dining restaurant essentially requires product quality, many employees and good locations in shopping malls that draw the attention of customers."
New menu items are also a part of Fuji's strength.
"Believe it or not, each menu item takes two years, with approvals from the head chef and our design and management team before we introduce it to the market," Mrs Rawiwan says.
Fuji wants its dishes to be shared by customers when they dine at its restaurants.
"This is what we have adapted to fit the Thai eating culture, which is different from the Japanese way, in which each restaurant only sells one kind of food such as gyoza or crab or tempura or udon," Ms Rawiwan says.
Fuji targets its brand at families, not just teenagers or working people. Children are Fuji's largest customer base, and they influence its popularity among families.
Fuji provides a variety of well-thought-out menu items to be shared among diners.
In addition, Fuji set up its own culinary school two years ago in order to train staff to meet international standards and support future expansion.
This will also help enhance skills and solve the shortage of workers in the restaurant industry.
"Staff shortages are a challenge for us, even though we're quite a well-known brand," Mrs Rawiwan says. "This is because more people from the provinces want to work in their hometowns nowadays, which is a change from the past when rural dwellers came to work in Bangkok."
Apart from the workforce issues, consumers' changing lifestyles also create further challenges.
Restaurants have to adjust to the new reality. They can no longer create one message for the masses.
"We have to build a new-generation management team to deal with today's customers," Mrs Rawiwan says. "The internet is playing a vital role in connecting them."
Each November, 30 Fuji restaurant VIP members are invited to attend rice-planting activities and observe Fuji's rice processing.
She says product quality and brand image also contribute to Fuji's market strength. The company started retailing popular restaurant items, such as ready-to-drink green tea and boiled rice. The retail products are similar to those used in Fuji restaurants.
Fuji started developing its ready-to-drink green tea long before any brand was available on the market, but spent so much time to get the taste just right that by the time it was launched, there were already 35 green tea brands in the market, Mrs Rawiwan says, laughing.
"We offer premium green tea, which is not a large segment but customer loyalty sustains it," she says.
Fuji has its own marketing company to handle promotions and communications activities and organise CRM, digital solutions, graphics and advertisements. Mrs Rawiwan handles the public relations work herself.
She has worked at Fuji for over a decade. Before that, she was involved in a variety of work, including fashion, television and music.
Paddy rice is milled before heading to Fuji restaurants and retailers under the Tana Grain brand.
"When I came back from [studying] overseas, I worked at a magazine and fashion company, and I had an opportunity to join a girl group, Girl Force, at Sony-BEC Tero," she says with a smile.
After quitting her singing career, she combined her love for fashion with marketing skills to work at Bara Windsor as a buyer before becoming part of the first team of Club 21, a distributor of international brands such as Lanvin, Alexander McQueen, Donna Karan and Jil Sander.
"Working at Club 21 taught me to be passionate," she says. "I was lucky to join at a time of business expansion, and my boss Khun Jit Chinorak was very nice. We set up a public relations and CRM team, so I had a chance to learn new things, especially while negotiating to bring in the Donna Karan brand."
Mrs Rawiwan still visits shopping centres for a professional purpose.
She not only tries various restaurants, but she also keeps an eye out for new lifestyle products, fashions, interesting events and concerts for marketing inspiration.
"Fuji's ambition is to become a global Japanese restaurant brand," she says.
To that end, the company is talking with business partners in many countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines, to expand Fuji's presence.
The expectation is to have Fuji restaurants in almost every Asean country within the next five years.
"I may not be the best marketer, but I am confident that I can help make Fuji restaurants become a global brand," Mrs Rawiwan says. "I believe anything is possible if I try."