Happy Kitchen

It’s the WORST restaurant I have ever been! The waiter’s attitude is so BAD! This is my second time to go there, but I won’t go there anymore! I just walked out of the restaurant with my friends, and then I heard the waiter said some bad things in Chinese, she was complaining the tip is not enough, and I heard she said“why I have to serve u if u just give so less tip.” And by the way, the first time I went there, her attitude was bad too, but I didn’t give them a negative comment, but I can’t stand it anymore! DAMN SUCK WAITER!

The food is delicious and the owner is super nice. He gave us a chicken drumstick for free:) must try the soy milk

Service here can be terrible at times, it feels like its just the 1 lady working the front with some cook (s) in the back. I’ve waited 45+minutes after placing my order before receiving any food before. However, the chicken wings here are the BOMB! I come here for the wings, and take the bad service.

The WORST restaurant I’ve EVER been to! This the first time I’ve ever walked out of a place without touching the food I ordered! Words cannot describe how appalling the miserable the atmosphere and food are. This place is cancer personified. The owners brought from mainland their cancerous misery and repugnant contempt for life and are now here plaguing the rest of the humanity!
Marched in on a holiday around 8pm and we were the only customer. Right away the female owner got up and physically kicked her husband/​chef and started cursing at him to get his lazy ass back to the kitchen. With foam and drool still wet around her mouth, she sat back down like a temporarily tamed mad dog to watch her soap.
The fat pig of waitress, whom I presume is the daughter, wobbled over like jabba the hut and took our order with such distain one would imagining her weight could only be caused by years of constipation and build up putrid crap residing in her.
The food was pure poison! The fish was literally rotten and disintegrated upon contact. One should not be surprised as everything prepared in this joyless place is tainted by the toxicity exhuming from the staff.
As son of immigrants, I can’t believe I would say this but I truly hope this miserable putrid family would pack up their bag, get on a boat and crawl back to the manure sewage hole they came from.

Decent beef rolls and fried chicken. Maybe it’s just me, but I definitely did not like the flavor of the tea-​infused chicken. One of the things I also didn’t like was that it took me close to 35 minutes of waiting to get my takeout. Bad service, very mediocre food.

Service is that of a mom and pop Chinese shop, so, barely existent. Nice that it’s open very late, and even when I they say closed at 2 am, they still let people in after. Business is business! The seafood noodles were good, and though the spinach meatball soup was good, it had just a little too much salt. We also got the tea-​flavored chicken leg on rice, and I was not a fan at all. The BF thought it was good. But the chicken and the rice were refrigerator cold, which I didn’t expect. Just enough food for the both of us.

I really wanted to like it because it was midnight, I was hungry, and it’s close to where I’m staying. Hankering for BEEF NOODLE SOUP, although satiated, I was unimpressed. The soup was sweet but not aromatic, the noodle didn’t have the al dente feel, and the tendon were like scrapings from the bottom of their left over rather than a meatier chunk I’m used to at another beef noodle restaurant.
I would probably continue supporting this place simply because it’s still open at 12 am. However, I highly suggest another location if you’re there at 5pm. I’m willing to give it another try to see if there’s other specialties.

I don’t know why this place called happy kitchen cause not happy at all. Worse customer service ever!!! that lady there (owner’s daughter?) looks like I owe her money or something.

I am waiting for my meal worth $ 33. for over 15 min but no sign no food. I told my mom not to go for expensive shrimp but with her alhemizer condition she is unable to reason. Just got $ 10.98 meat balls straight ge looking. No sauce.

After seeing the Harbin episode of No Reservations, I was looking to try some of the great looking food presented there, so I checked Unilocal and this place came up first. The restaurant isn’t the cleanest and the service isn’t the best. The people there speak NO English at all. Most people at least know «Hello» or «Thank you», but from the moment I step in, everything the lady says (including thank you) is in Mandarin. For this reason, I can never call in my order in advance, so I drive over, write what I want on the order sheet, and sit and read something for the next 20 – 30 minutes. It’s a total one family show, so the husband is always cooking and the wife is always serving (and sometimes catching a nap in the late afternoon or early morning hours).
The food is pretty good, depending on what you get. My favorite dish is the double cooked pork slices. The pork is crisply fried, with just enough sweet & sour sauce and some garlic slivers. The tofu strips with peppers is another favorite of mine. Delicious sauce, and goes perfectly with the sautéed vegetables that they offer. The two sautéed vegetable dishes I’ve tried are the A-​choy and the spinach cooked with garlic. They’re pretty good, but I’m sure most people could cook something similar at home. Another dish I like is their pork and sour cabbage casserole with tofu. I’m a soup nut, and this one really hits the spot for me, though like the veggies, I’m sure if you’re a good cook you could make something similar at home. The free tea smoked chicken leg (with $ 20 purchase) is delicious! I don’t like chicken, but the smokiness of the meat gets me every time! I’ve also tried some of the dumplings before, but none of them stood out to me. Not bad, but not memorable either.
This place is open until 2 am, which is perfect for those nights when I get off of work at midnight. Just wish it was a bit cleaner, and that they would have someone there who could speak English so I could call my order in and save myself half an hour.

Came here late at night with some friends one night because it was the only place that was open nearby.
Pros:
Opens late
Wide variety of food
Plenty of parking
Cons:
Awful service
Cash only
Neutral:
The food wasn’t bad but wasn’t great.
Pricing — Some of it was cheap, some was a little pricey for the amount you get
Overall: I probably wouldn’t come back here because this place is nothing special. The only thing this place has going for it is probably their late hours. The lady serving us was extremely rude and apathetic towards us. I give this place 2 stars.

called to ask a simple question…
***phone rings***
lady: ni hao ma
me: hi hello
lady: ni hao *some chinese words*
me: do you guys sell steamed rice?
lady: *some chinese words again*
me: do you speak english?
lady: meiyou
wtf

Totally family owned business, the dumplings were great and the bf noodle soup weren’t as greasy. Good veggie dish. The problem is the service really sucks, sorry to say this is Monterey park after all, you only go there for good food but don’t expect the same for the service. The young woman daughter server can’t speak English and feel like I owe her hundred $$, super super rude always. I used to be regular there only when the father took the order. Seems like they don’t care or even read the review at all.
The place use to be bz but not anymore now, maybe I won’t come back after my last visit. Bad bad service.

Was searching for another place for beef rolls & Happy Kitchen came up.
Finally tried stinky tofu. Much milder then I expected and very tasty. Kind of a cheese quality. Definitely could smell why they say stinky. Had the beef rolls I came for too & they were great.
They have a huge menu, dumplings, buns, etc. Will definitely be back!

Bonus is huge portion, don’t leave hungry. xlb was so so, my favorite fried pork «Lui Rou Duan» was very salty and different from what I had in NY. Dumpling was okie too. Cumin lamb was actually the best dish so far. Nice on the smoked tea chicken leg with $ 20 of purchase. Overrall, wished they could be better, wanted to come for awhile.

The food here is so good. I don’t really like Chinese food but I love this place. Mom and pop place so I didn’t feel so guilty having my toddlers there since they had their grandson there too. Older gentleman was extremely nice even have us free chicken. Not that we didn’t order enough food to feed 7 people lol. It was my daughter first time eating steamed shrimp and she simply love it. Service was okay only because there was a language barrier. But got to say it again good was great great great

This place is just okay. The «waitress» that took our order (I think it is the owners’ daughter), I don’t know what is her attitude, but she gives you a mean stare and is very rude. She also works very slow.
I am definitely not coming back here or recommend it to my friends or family.

greasy, oily Chinese food. What’s so special about this place?
The first sign of warning should have been how empty the restaurant was on a weekday at 7pm when the line at Boiling Point across the street was out the door.
Second omen: They lure you with side dishes if you purchase $ 10 worth of food and a tea flavored chicken leg if you order $ 20 at the restaurant.
A good restaurant does not need to offer you food to get you to come back. Let’s just say the chicken leg was way too salty.
The sauteed spinach was a bit too salty even though it had the right ingredient, garlic.
The beef roll was dry. I can’t help but compare it to the same beef roll down the street at 101 Noodle Express that is filled with the sweet, teriyaki-​like sauce.
The xiao long bao (steamed dumpling) was… well, not Ding Tai Fung. It was juicy but also very greasy. After two, I had enough.
Is it not fair that I keep comparing the dishes here with another restaurant? Well, I kept thinking why I would come back to this restaurant. No for the food since I can spend my money better elsewhere. Not for the freebie… the chicken leg is really not worth it. And definitely not for the service. We were the only table at the restaurant when we first arrived. But the waitress was not out in the eating area half the time.
Sigh… what a waste of my hungry appetite tonight…

Thanks to the reviews of some people about the «lamb snail rice noodle soup», we found a gem in this little restaurant. Their XLB are about average for the area. The pan fried dumplings are pretty good as the skin is not too thick.
Another thing is that they give you a free smoked tea chicken thigh with orders above $ 20. It is quite smokey and tasty. They also have a buy 2 dish get one free offer, but you probably cannot get both.
It’s a mom and pop place. They are nice and quite aggressive in getting customers in their restaurant.

So happy I found this place!
Have had it bookmarked for a while and finally made the trek over with the little bro.
After pulling up into the plaza I realized I’ve been here before. not this restaurant, but the one right next store serving similar food.
When we walked in around 12:30 it was pretty empty. We were greeted warmly by the kind auntie and told to sit anywhere in mandarin (uh oh. canton speaker here).
We looked over the menu and when we looked lost and wasn’t able to communicate with her, I started showing her pictures from Unilocal.She was soo sweet and circled all the items that I pointed to on the phone.
For the two of us, we definitely OVER ORDERED! We got the following.
–Beef tendon noodle soup: Oh my lord, this was so delicious. Bold broth, not fatty at all, tender chewy noodles, and tendon so tender and not tough at all. The bowl was huge and for $ 7 it was well worth the money.
–Beef Rolls: We definitely did not expect this to be so big. The roll was perfect, thin, flaky, rolls of goodness, circling sweet tender beef slices and loads of scallions. Although sometimes this dish can be super greasy, in this case, the roll was perfectly crisped and not overwhelming with oil. I really enjoyed it, but one serving was good for me. Quite heavy with the carbs.
–Tea smoked chicken: Nice big portion of a marinated chicken leg cut into several pieces. The flavors were rich, roasted smokey flavor, and the chicken moist. YUM
–Shrimp and pork dumplings: There were so many different options, that we had the auntie pick for us. I believe the order came with maybe 8 pieces? The skin not too thick, and the filling? There was a full piece of shrimp in there! So surprised by that. Not dinky at all.
–Marinated cold cucumbers: Spicy, refreshing, and the perfect compliment to the rest of the items.
–Tea eggs: complimentary from the sweet owner! yay
All in all, the experience was great. Although we couldn’t really communicate with the owner and the waitress verbally, they did their best to assist us. We were so lost and they definitely were patient with us as we picked our dishes. Every now and then the owner would come over and check on us.
It’s not a fancy place, but the food is definitely solid. I would say beware of how much you older. For the two of us, the amount of food we ordered was way too much. That probably would’ve nicely fed 3 – 4 people.
Either way, such a great find and I would definitely come back.