Happy Chang

Sorry to say Happy Changs closed but not to Worry Sue the past owner of Happy Chang is reopened her Thai Restruant and it is called
SUE THAI OM
SAME GREAT FOOD
Sue is cooking
So happy this place is back with a name change and in the same place here in San Marcos so everyone go over and eat a SUE THAI OM and support her and get some of the best Thai food in San Diego
Thai tea is yummy try it

note: Unilocal says Happy Chang is now closed. this review was for a visit a couple weeks ago.
Service: great, very friendly. if you need anything, just ask and it shall be given unto you. but you may have to go find the worker (there’s not many of them).
Food: lunch special is pretty great value you get a small soup and an entrée with your choice of meat (and an egg roll, but its nothing to write home about). the portions are good and they give a generous amount of meat per dish — but be aware that everything is on the sweet side. noticeably sweet, which is why this place for me gets 3 stars instead of 4.
pad thai — solid, solid pad thai. didnt mind that its sweet since thats part of the deal with pad thai.
pad see ew — was tasty, but too sweet for me.
green curry — lots of good stuff in it, lots of chicken, but too sweet again =/​
for students they offer a free thai iced tea with your student ID. cant confirm how good the thai tea is though. and my student days and student metabolism are behind me now.

Great service, wonderful food, and very reasonable pricing! Their midweek lunch specials are excellent, and really hit the spot when you are looking for some authentic Thai food. Keep up the good work!

Awesome food! So fresh and so delicious and great prices! Green chicken curry my absolute favorite and love their drunken noodles, spicy basil dish, orange chicken, and pepper curry beef! Yum yum

I went here on mothers day so the service was a bit slow and I had to get up and fill my own water a couple times. But the food was excellent and the décor was very fun. They give you plenty of rice which is nice compared to the other thai restaurants around here. Definetely would return. I got the yellow curry.

It’s the closest Thai place to my house so I go here for a quick Thai fix. I’m not sure why it takes them so long to prepare/​cook but the few times I’ve bought my food here, I have to wait much longer than I normally do with other Thai restaurants.
As far as their lunch specials, they will only include the soup if you dine in. If you placed your order for to go, only the egg roll is included (the egg roll is by the way greasier than my face in humidity). The brown bag the egg roll was in turned dark brown by the time I got home. It was that greasy.
I give the food 3 stars since it’s not quite the best though it satisfies the palate, like the aforementioned, it’s good for that quick Thai fix. I also would like to comment on their price, the quality is a dollar less than what they are charging it for.

Always delicious and always reliable. You know what you are going to get and it’s consistent. The people are friendly. They make the food fast too!

This place has some pretty good food. I come here often with my friends and family. We usually get the the pad thai and pad see ew and are always happy with those choices. Be careful with the spice level because it tends to change each time you visit. You could ask for a level 3 spiciness or something mild, but it can end up tasting like an 8. They also give students free thai tea if they show them a school ID. Of course free is awesome, but the down side is that over half of the thai tea is milk so it’s really sweet. This place is family owned so it’s a really casual atmosphere.

Oh man– what a pleasant surprise. I just moved to Vista and, plot twist, I was hungry one evening and wanted to find the tastiest food for the least amount of money. Long story short– Happy Chang. Not gonna lie– the location had an eerie, Breaking Bad, Los Pollos Hermanos vibe– being located in a strange, almost abandoned looking mini-​mall type place. It probably didn’t help that some of the surrounding buildings were under construction.
BUUUUT– what a testimony to not judging a book by its cover. When I went in to the small, quaint little restaurant, I was immediately greeted by Randy, who was super nice and very welcoming. I sat down at a small table. I went early in the evening on a Tuesday night so, naturally, it was very slow. I was immediately impressed when my water didn’t taste like they strained it with a dirty sock– as I’ve experienced at many Thai places. Secondly, I was impressed by how clean the tables were.
Most importantly I was impressed by the quality of the food. I ordered Thai wings, a cup of Tom Kha soup and a Thai iced tea. The wings were backed with flavor and very meaty. The soup was an explosion of flavor i my mouth. Though I would say on both, next time I would tell them to go higher on the spicey scale– I think they gave me the white boy 7 instead of the real 7.
Over all, it was a pleasant experience. I would definitely go again. It seems like they have a pretty awesome selection of entres and over all it’s very reasonably priced.

This place is the best. Great food & excellent service. You can get a thia tea for free with a student ID. I always get a pot of the Tom Kar. It’s my favorite. Then I like to finish with the mango sticky rice. Favorite Thai place hands down

The best Thai Food I’ve ever had. Is there anything else I really need to say? GO GO GO!

I am not a thai cuisine expert but man… I loved this place! First off, the waitress was really nice, the place was warm and cozy, service was fast and the food was extremely delicious. I am a big fan of spicy food so I ordered the ‘red curry’ with chicken and level 5 spiciness; and do not be fooled, even with a 5 it was pretty spicy but that’s how I like it. This curry had a lot of vegetables and was creamy and smooth, not too heavy not too light, simply right. My boyfriend on the other hand doesn’t like spicy things at all so he ordered ‘pad thai’ with chicken and level 1 spiciness, it was a mix of sour and sweet and also very delicious. The portions were gigantic so better come here if you are really hungry! We also had ‘thai iced tea with boba’ which I was not really that impressed by but it was okay.
We read on their facebook page that if you pay with cash you get 10% (you also have to mention the facebook ad) and you get free teas if you show a student ID.
Would definitely recommend!

Ohhhh nooo I hate to do this happy chang but what the heck did I just eat? I ordered take out, they were out of two of the things I asked for before I got pad thai chicken. When I got home I open the lid to a lump of mashed noodles in some red sauce with a couple green onions. NO Peanuts sprinkled on top with wedges of lime and sauce on the side. I guess cause the 5 star spicy sauce was like ketchup with a kick, even the chicken in it was super dry. I soaked up the sauce with it… now to sit back and wait to see when the tummy noises kick in. If quality goes back up I will come back and eat my words. Til then… oh my tummy.

Hm… I have mix feelings about this restaurant regarding the food quality. On one side their fish cakes were the best I’ve had!!! And they were so nice to serve sticky rice with it upon request. On the other hand, the noodle dishes we tried were not up to par. The pad see ew was a bit bland and I didn’t feel like finishing it. The pad Thai had too much sauce which caused the noodles to become soggy and overseasoned. The two times I tried to order the boat noodles they didn’t have meat balls in stock (which is a must to complete the dish). The only time I tried the boat noodles without the meatballs but just the beef and chicken (as a substitute) didn’t turn out so well because the meat was very tough. However their broth was pretty good.
Food quality aside, the service was friendly but not as attentive as I would hope. Maybe we went there off hours and the server was always back inside.
Another thing I wasn’t a fan of was the loud dance club pop music being played. Just kind of weird to eat pad Thai while listening to lady Gaga’s newest song… Or some chick singing about her breakup and how to stay strong, something like that.
This is a rare exception where I’ll be back though even for a 3 star review because seriously their fish cakes are aaammmmaaazzziiinnnnggggg!!!

Whoa no joke. Either they changed cooks/​recipes or everyone on Unilocal should be flogged.
Maybe the worst Thai or any food I’ve ever had at a restaurant.
It’s not hard to be avg. I’ve had several places that are just ok. But this place was far worse than any place I’ve ever tried. I don’t think I’ve had food this bad since college when we were learning how to cook.
I’ve never had drenched pad see ew or pad Thai. The noodles were sopping wet. It had a pool of sauce at the bottom of the pad see ew.
You could smell the sauce. The pad Thai noodles were like thin spaghetti and also soggy.
The sauce on the pra am (so?) was off too.
So bad we didn’t take any food back with us.
Service was good.

I’m a regular at Nattiyas, and after seeing Happy Chang’s reviews, I had to see what the hype was about!
Verdict: I’ll be back soon.
Love the menu design/​theme of this restaurant. I came here for lunch and was blown away at the insanely quick service (food on the table in less than 10 minutes), giant portions (see photo attached, that’s a lunch special!), great taste (I finished everything), clean (I didn’t have to re polish my silverware here as I do with other Asian places)
Noteworthy qualities:
Free Thai Tea with a student ID ($ 10 minimum purchase)
Photo of my Panang Curry = $ 10 after tax and tip. Woohoo!

Happy Chang?! That’s me! The only problem is I wasn’t that happy after eating here.
This is one of those instances where I really think Unilocalers got it wrong. Ordered 4 dishes to-​go and they were all very disappointing. The Thai boat soup was so sweet and didn’t have any depth in flavor. Ordered 3 types of pad see ews, pork, tofu and beef. The noodles were in big clumps, soggy, and the broccoli soggy too. I also found the proportion of noodles to other ingredients off. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy anything I ordered and Happy Chang doesn’t make actual Changs happy.

We ordered red curry and chicken padsewee to go, and have to say disappointed in both. Let’s say neither of it’s finished it.
You will see in photos, but curry was unflavorful and oily. I’m sorry, I know the main ingredients of curry and not sure how it can be oily. Whether it was «chili oil» I have had curry that was flavorful, coconut-​y, and spicy without being oily. The flavor was just … Untasteful. Oh and 8, is so not spicy.
The padsewee was not fully and completely mixed/​stirfried evenly. It was not tasteful either.
For the north San Diego/​San Marcos region I still vote for rakadeka restaurant for both flavor, price, and quantity. Kind and I, for flavor and price, but quantity ok.
I give happy chang 2 stars for the quantity and just that it wasn’t completely awful, just not good.
Sorry happy chang, we were not so happy.

Pretty good Thai place. Cute décor, really colorful with lots of elephants. The customer service was great. There was a harsh stream of light coming in through the windows and they tried really hard to fix it. =)
The portions are really large (two meals worth) and pretty tasty. The pad Thai was less of that typical peanut sauce (+1) and had more complex flavors — more authentic. The fresh spring rolls were pretty good but rolled kind of messy… The peanut sauce more than made up for it though. Also had the panang curry which was nice, but a little thinner than I typically like. I also asked for pork but it seemed like there was also chicken in it? Or maybe it was just really light pork… You can choose spiciness on a scale of 1 – 10, I thought 4 seemed reasonable but it was quite mild.
Either way, I’d definitely recommend checking it out. Bit quiet when I was there but it made for a more relaxing meal.

Legit thai food. Owner is very nice and always here. Pad see ewe was petty good I like mine a little more dry but it was good