Happy Valley Food City — Restaurant in Burnaby

I really tried hard to like this restaurant but after three attempts with the last one being absolutely botched, I feel obligated to tell you my experiences.

The first visit came after a long day at work. Decided to go to this restaurant with colleagues because it catered to a varied palate. We got seated and was given menus…and proceeded to try and order food. For the next five attempts, we were told that the kitchen was closing and that they couldn’t make what we ordered. Like why seat us and give us the menus? We offered to leave but they insisted we stay. After a few more tries, we ended up getting plain rice with veggies. So not what we wanted. To make matters worse, the lady was hovering for us to pay and leave as soon as we were served. So not even halfway through our meal, we called it and packed to go. I chalked it up to just being tired and one bad experience shouldn’t sour everything. Boy was I wrong!

My family and I went back a second time because we didn’t want to wait for a table at our usual dim sum hang outs for a weekend lunch. Got there and were seated relatively quickly. That was the only good thing about it. The food was mediocre at best. The service was debatable. My Husband, who is normally not very picky, stated outright that he will never go back again. Should have listened to him. Husband, I am so sorry for doubting you!

Well, during our last meal there, some flyers for set meals caught my eye. They had lobster and crab set meals for super inexpensive! Even if we ordered double, it wouldn’t break the bank and with Mother’s Day coming up… I made a reservation for Mother’s Day about 1 month in advance trying to be organized (Husband had to work so I thought this worked out well).

The day of the dinner, my brother and his family were all sick. So when we arrived we had to change our table of 10 to 6. Most restaurants would be fine with resetting the table and seating us anyways. Not them. They wanted to “save” the table and made us wait for a table of 6 to open up. Do you know how long that took during dinner crush on Mother’s Day?

So we finally get seated, and ordered our set dinner menu right away. We were starving and my Mom is diabetic but no worries. We just have to wait for our food. We waited. And we waited. After waiting one hour and not even getting the usual freebie soup they give you right away…and seeing people seated after us eat and leave, we asked a waitress to look into our order for how much longer. The waitress comes back after a few minutes to say our food is almost ready and be patient since it’s Mother’s Day. Fair enough.

We waited an additional 20 mins to flag another waitress. She came back to us to apologize and say she never put the order in. Now my sister gets hangry…like really hangry and got ready to leave. The manager shows up to de-escalate the situation and promises that the cooks are handling it right away and the food should start arriving in 5 minutes. And to show good faith, we can pick something off the menu and be given it for free. Remember I mentioned my Mom is a diabetic? I don’t recall being able to cook a set menu within 5 minutes even if they cook it in an industrial kitchen.

With the long wait initially to be seated, to then be told we needed to be patient by the waitress who went to “check on our order”, to finally be told that our food was never entered into their system and be placated with a free dish. What a way to ruin our Mother’s Day with my Mom ready to faint from her low blood sugar. This restaurant should not be...

Ok I am going to go with a 3 star. Brand spanking new. A bit disorganized.

Called about 4 times to try to make a reservation but each time it went directly to voicemail. So made a point to go in to reserve. When you reserve they ask you which side. Apparently they have the restaurant split up into diff sections servicing different food. The menus have different names: wonder house and happy valley HK cafe which together make up Happy Valley Food City. Very confusing to be honest!

As I didn’t know what the difference was I asked for menus. The gentleman in the front gave me a dinner one and a BBQ one. I looked on the podium table and there were about 3-4 additional menus so I grabbed those too.

Honestly not sure which side I booked for as I pointed to the one that had “dinner” starting at 5pm.

Although it’s all the same kitchen so why not serve all the food no matter where you are sitting? So if one section is busy and another (that serves different food) is not does that mean people will have to wait to eat at the busy sections?

When we arrived and told them we had resos they once again asked which side 🤦🏻‍♀️ and once again I had no idea! Lol

We ordered:

1. chicken and salted fish fried rice. Wasn’t bad but could have used more salt. Ordered large size

2. deep friend fish - this dish was done really well

3. seafood crispy chow mein. Had a good amount of seafood (shrimp, fish & squid). Noodles were crispy, BUT there was no flavouring in the sauce. Added some of the garlic etc from the fish . Ordered large size $22. It’s listed on another menu too but that is a personalized size $16

4. steak bites - wasn’t bad

5. Steak/rice - son thought it was a baked rice with sauce but it was a bowl of rice and a steak in a sizzling platter with some veggies and sauce. Also came with a drink. This was apparently good.

Came to $120 before tip. Decent pricing.

Took about 30 min for the steak bite dish to come out. Then another 30ish minutes for the rest to come out (steak was eaten by then)

3 kids ranging from 15-19 rated it 4.5-5/10. Comment was bland. They only liked the fish dish.

2 adults rated 6.5-7/10

Might give it another try later down the road when they iron out the kinks.

Sorry, didn’t take photo of everything as family gets tired/annoyed of waiting for me...

As soon as I sit down I can already hear waitresses apologising to the table behind me for a mistake on their order, saying that the chefs are new. Anyway…

I ordered 米線 mixian noodle with cuttlefish ball & BBQ pork. My friend orders 焗豬扒飯 (baked pork rice). We both order a lemon tea with less sugar.

First the waitress comes back and notifies me that they have run out of mixian 米線 noodle and asked if I wanted to change to a different noodle, so I changed to hofun 河粉. 5 min later she comes back again to tell me they ran out of cuttlefish ball. (How can the kitchen be so unprepared??)

Anyway I ask her to give me a minute and then a different waitress comes, and I tell her I want to change the whole dish to baked seafood rice. She says ok and walks away. Then the original waitress comes back to me to ask what I want/ if I want to cancel, and seems confused when I told her I changed my order. Lots of miscommunication there between the staff.

Our drinks arrive first. The waitress serves us one regular, one less sweet. We remind her that we ordered TWO less sweet. She apologises and takes it back. When our drinks come, it doesn’t taste like LESS sugar, it tastes like there’s no sugar at all… not very pleasant.

Then the food arrives. Just from looking at my friend’s dish we can see it’s beef. (He ordered baked PORK chop). I let the waitress know and she takes it away and my friend, who is very hungry, has to keep waiting.

As we’re waiting I see the table on my right complaining that they ordered something different from what they were served, and the same waitress takes their dish away too… A few moments later the table in front of me is complaining that their order (the sauce & meat) is incorrect too?!

I have NEVER seen a restaurant this disorganised before. I’m really speechless.

The food itself, when the correct orders came, were just ok, nothing special.

I would not recommend and I definitely will not be back. I’ve never had so many things go wrong in one meal before. I understand that this is a new restaurant but there are a lot of things they need to work on. What a...