HAPPY DRAGON — Restaurant in Calera

This was our first visit to the restaurant and it was a good visit, though it had some negative aspects. My son had the steak hibachi, which included soup and salad. The salad was more of the yellow core of lettuce and none of the green leafy part. The soup was “onion soup” on the menu, but it was a dark broth with large slices of mushroom, chunks of chicken and he said it was not good. It wasn’t traditional hibachi onion soup. His steak didn’t have much flavor and he said it was chewy. They didn’t ask how we wanted the steak cooked and it was way overcooked. There was a large serving of fried rice (we paid extra for fried) and while he said it didn’t have a lot of flavor, it did have a good texture with a good ratio of eggs and carrots. I had an appetizer of spring rolls and Mongolian Beef with fried rice (paid extra for fried). The spring rolls tasted good, but they were more like an eggroll in a wonton wrap as opposed to an eggroll. The cabbage was not chopped well so when I bit in to it, it just kept coming out of the wrapper. The Mongolian Beef and fried rice was a good amount for the serving size. Again, the rice had a great texture, and a good ratio of eggs, carrots, etc., but again, no flavor. It was very bland. The Mongolian Beef also didn’t have a pronounced flavor. I absolutely love Mongolian Beef, but I did feel like this lacked something. The meat was cut to a good size and very tender, the sauce was a great consistency, it wasn’t all onion and shallots like some restaurants do, but the flavor was just not there. My niece had a good serving size of her meal, which I tasted and it had good flavor. My great niece had dumplings and fried rice. She ate the dumplings and some of the rice, but didn’t complain. All in all, for the cost (I was shocked! $$$), I was under-impressed with the flavor of the food, though the serving sizes were excellent. We were the only ones eating there but we were not offered drink refills and I had to get up to get our “to-go” boxes myself. Several people came in for take out while we were there. I won’t rule it out. I will certainly try it again with some...

One thing I have learned here is that you can ask them to make things more spicy. That helps so much because nothing on the menu is actually spicy. It's needed for some dishes.

Been here a few times for lunch and dinner. I've tried almost everything on the menu and this is one of the best Chinese places I've tried in a while.

The only negatives:

Egg rolls to me are on usually better at dinner than lunch. When cooked fresh and crisp, some of the best egg rolls in Alabama

Lastly when I ordered a large order of food and ordered 2 orders of egg rolls, my egg rolls were left off. They gave me the option to come back and get them. A great service restaurant would offer something in addition. A single extra egg roll or a $5 off coupon would have made me feel like great service.

The positives:

General's, Honey, Kung Pao, Teriyaki literally every meal I have tried except for Mongolian was superb.

Also appetizers, spring rolls, egg rolls, bang bang shrimp, were all delicious.

I will be coming back often to give the Hibachi meals a shot.

The stand out to me is the General's meal and the Honey chicken and shrimp. Both of these are delicious.

I'm a Mongolian fan so if they can get this to another level, that would be awesome.

Avoid the Mongolian and you'll love...

One of the highlights of my childhood was going with my mom to the Jade Buddha Chinese restaurant in Alexandria, VA. I love Chinese food. Tonight my son and I were deciding which Chinese restaurant we wanted to try. We were both disappointed the last time we went out for Chinese. So I looked at reviews of other local Chinese and the reviews from Happy Dragon in Calera caught my attention and that’s what we chose. It was excellent, excellent, excellent. The egg rolls were the best I’ve had; very crisp. The portions of our meal were huge and the presentation was fantastic….the freshness, the amount, the taste….best I have seen, and tasted, anywhere. Definitely 5-star worthy! I wish I had taken a picture of our plates! We had Sweet ‘n Sour Chicken and...