(916) 736-3131
Parking: in shopping center parking lot
Last Visited: August 21, 2011
Food: 2 to 3 stars
Atmosphere: 3 stars
Service: 3 stars
Price: $
We arrived for lunch at Happy Corner to meet some friends, so our table was already set and ready when I came in. Happy Corner is brightly lit with lighter color furniture. The large windows on two sides of the restaurant bring in a lot of natural light, but was not blinding.
Happy Corner offers a lot of very reasonably priced menu items. One example is the three dishes for $21.99 menu which includes soup and steamed rice. Another example is their $5.95 menu which comes with a milk tea or lemon tea and is offered only during lunch. Most items on the regular menu are under $10.
Today, they were somewhat busy, so it took a while for us to get our order taken - probably at least ten minutes of waiting after we were ready, so this is definitely an area of improvement. We ordered two of the $5.95 dishes and learned that they were out of milk tea. Since it was about noon, we were a bit surprised - this menu would be available for at least another couple of hours - how do you run out of milk tea during your peak time so quickly?
Since milk tea wasn't available, we got lemon tea. The tea was pretty weak, but the lemon flavor was present from the fresh lemons in the drink. Fair.
- Beef Chow Fun - Of the dishes we tried, this was probably the best because it was the most close to authentic. This was very standard in flavor and presentation - just what you would expect when you order it. The beef, chow fun, and vegetables were all good. $5.95
- Pork Chow Mein - Crunchy pan fried noodles are served topped with a pork and bean sprout stir fry mixture in gravy. The portion was okay and while the ingredients were fresh, the topping was too heavy on bean sprouts and could be more balanced with some shitake mushrooms or just less bean sprouts. Okay. $5.95- Steamed Fish - Since our table brought our own fresh salmon, I can't tell you the actual price. The fish came out very nicely, not overcooked, and we paid a nominal fee.
The three dishes for $21.99 menu has a lot of choices - probably more than twenty.
- Hot and Sour Soup - More sweet than hot and sour, I wouldn't order this on its own. It's also served with a disposable plastic spoon which seemed odd. It's not clear why this saves effort from their end since it has an effect of seemingly reducing quality of service and decor.
- Braised Tofu with Vegetables - This was probably the second best dish of the day. Everything about it is what you would typically expect - fresh vegetables served under braised tofu. I'm not sure if I just didn't get to it fast enough, but the tofu temperature could be a tad hotter. The texture of everything was good. - Bittermelon with Chicken - Black bean sauce is cooked with tender dark meat and slices of bittermelon. This dish had too much sauce and that seemed to dilute the flavor of it a bit too.
- Salted Pork Spareribs - The flavor of the spareribs were fine, but the individual pieces were pretty small and more bone than meat. Typically, the pieces are larger, so the bones are just a fraction of each piece, but here the bones are more than half or three quarters of each piece. There is definitely room for improvement for this dish.
Happy Corner Cafe offers lots of value and decent to good food for the price, but the quality of each dish should be carefully examined. If everything was up to par compared to what is considered standard by most restaurants, I would heartily recommend Happy Corner, but for now, you need to pick and choose so it's a lot of trial and error taste testing. Stocking up on milk tea would also be a good idea. We were treated to mango pudding, made from a mix, for dessert, so the staff was generous with us. Happy Corner has potential to be really good, but for now, they're just okay.
No comments:
Post a Comment