Happy Hong Kong Restaurant — Restaurant in Richmond

First time trying—and it will definitely be the last. We were misled by the photos and thought the food would be delicious and authentic. While it looks like Hong Kong cuisine, the taste was far worse than any other Hong Kong restaurant—or even food courts.

We started with the Hong Kong daily soup, 列湯. It seemed like it had plenty of ingredients, enough for four people. But to our surprise, the soup was extremely bland and watered down. We're usually fine with soup that has no added salt or MSG—sometimes we even prefer it that way—but in this case, we could literally taste and smell boiled tank water. Worst of all, after leaving it for a short time, it started to taste like it was going bad. Overall, it wasn’t fresh and had absolutely no flavor.

My friend ordered three Western-style combo plates: fried pork chop, grilled ox tongue, and grilled chicken steak. The ox tongue came with an additional $4 charge, but the quality wasn’t worth a penny. It was extremely dry, completely flavorless, and had an odd, sponge-like texture. It honestly felt like chewing on a cleaning sponge. My friend, who’s not picky at all, struggled to even finish a few slices. The combos also came with soup—ours was corn cream soup, which tasted like it had an overwhelming amount of butter.

I ordered the traditional beef pan-fried rice noodles because I was craving Hong Kong street food. Sadly, it was also incredibly bland and lacked any flavor. Normally, you can smell the signature aroma of wok-fried noodles and beef—but this plate had no fragrance at all. Even stranger, they added celery, which I’ve never seen in this dish before.

We also tried the pineapple buns, which we usually always order at Hong Kong restaurants. These were a major disappointment too. We wanted to compare them with the ones from Lido—safe to say, just stick with Lido.

The dining experience wasn’t pleasant either. We were seated in a back corner where the servers rarely came. We waited over 30 minutes, waving and even making eye contact with several staff members—only to be ignored. In the end, we had to get up and approach them ourselves just to place an order.

The atmosphere was okay, with a few large family gatherings around us, but overall, I wouldn’t recommend...

Will never come back again…. I was so upset that I wanted to just leave and forgot to take pic of the dishes.

Today was my 2nd time going to this place. I gave it another go thinking that they had an off day; however, it was more disappointing than the first time.

First time, they weren’t busy cuz it was around 3-4pm. We noticed they don’t clean or sanitize properly cuz there were used tissue and food on chairs.

Second time, it was super busy as it was lunch hour. At a glance, they were all over the place. There were already unhappy customers when we were waiting for table. I noticed they kept sending food to the wrong tables. I actually wanted to leave or get take out. I should have listen to my gut feeling.

We ordered and got our drinks and everything was good and I was like “Oh not too bad so far! Good thing I gave this place another chance”

Boy… was I wrong. I noticed a server was bringing 2 plates and I thought it was ours, but she was bringing them to another table and I didn’t think much. Until she placed a plate on their table and they were all figuring who to give it to. She realized it was not for them but for us. She was holding 1 plate the whole time so no problem on that. The other plate was in front of other customers and they weren’t wearing mask and talking over it. She wanted to bring that over to me.

I immediately said “Are you kidding? Everyone pretty much spat on it and covid times I really don’t want to eat other ppl’s spit….” The server was like they didn’t talk…… umm yes they did. I was watching and listening. I asked for them to remake and she “agreed” and not even a min she came back and said “This is newly made.” 🙄🙄🙄 At least make it believable…. First, it was kinda cold… Second, if you can remake EVERYTHING in less than a minute? Why were we waiting for 15-20 mins for our food after ordering in the first place?!?

Overall, they lost my business forever. DO...

It was our first time in Happy Hong Kong Restaurant. My husband and I went there for lunch at 11:30 am today (Mar. 21). We ordered Chicken & Veg. Crispy Noodle ($16.5) and Pork Liver Congee ($10.5). We waited for almost half an hour and the annoyed server explained that the slow service was due to one chef available in the kitchen . Know what? There were only a few tables occupied in the restaurant at that time and yet one chef can’t cater for the few! Can you imagine how confusing it will be if it is full house? When the plate of noodle came, it was literally flooded with gravy, so much so that it almost ran over the plate. (Photo was taken but this column would not accept pasting). Even a trainee chef would not make a mess of the dish like that. Oil and gravy all mixed together like a pool of watered down chicken and vegetables on a cake of noodles in the centre. The boss should have seen it! It wouldn’t even pass food court standard. My husband’s stomach was upset at once even though the congee was ok. When asked whether this was the typical day sub standard presentation, the other polite server responded, “This is accidental. It didn’t happen everyday.” What happened to management or the executive chef? Any food quality and timing control?

After coming home to read the reviews, I find there are two extreme poles of opinions. This just reflects staffing and kitchen management have been very unstable, thus creating some good and some really bad...