Happy Dragon Chinese Express — Restaurant in Cedar Hills

We live in Pleasant Grove where, aside from The Smoked Taco and The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill, there's really not many other restaurants worth spending your money on as dining out gets more and more expensive. For fast Chinese food I don't know of ANY options, even bad ones, so we've been driving to Orem, until we stumbled onto this little gem in Cedar Hills.

Walked in about 20 minutes before they closed and weren't expecting much more than dried out food in dirty, day-old serving trays, but we were pleasantly wrong. We were immediately greeted by an incredibly friendly Latino young man who spoke only enough English to get by, but who immediately offered us some samples with a smile from ear to ear. My wife shrugged and said "Sure" even though we were pretty close to deciding what we were going to order without them. He poked at some General Tsao's chicken with a toothpick and handed it to her. "Oh yum!" Then handed me one, then poked at some honey shrimp. Before long, I had one sample in my mouth and two more in hand when our new friend was going for more. I waved him off with a smile. If he kept at it, he was going to get me full without paying for my dinner.

Thoroughly impressed already, we placed our orders. I got the Mongolian beef and, after the sample of that honey shrimp I didn't care how much the premium was, I had to have more! My wife got the General Tsao's chicken (the sample sold her, too) and the last of the broccoli beef. After our containers were loaded, he walked over to the stove and fired up a wok. I guessed he was going to get started on some more broccoli beef for the next guest just before ringing us up. Then he went to the register and punched in our orders and I paid. But he didn't give us our food. He kept smiling and saying "just a minute" and kept working the wok, dumping about 8 ounces of beef into it. Finally, in broken English he explained that he didn't think my wife got enough beef with her broccoli and he wanted to make her some more! Finally cooked, he dumped a ton of fresh, sizzling hot beef on top of her already-full container! (Look at the photo - the broccoli beef is in the upper left and you can hardly see any broccoli!) We just looked at each other and smiled! He tied up our bag with a huge, toothy smile, then in broken English thanked us for coming and invited us to come back again. About as sincere and genuine as you can get.

When there are so many other places that are just mediocre with lacking service, this was a breath of fresh air we couldn't stop talking about all the way home.

While the food is very good, it's not the best I've ever had, but it is about as good as Chinese fast food gets (and blows Panda out of the running without even trying). That said, the honey shrimp is outstanding and solidly worth the upcharge. We came away completely stuffed and my wife had so much beef on her broccoli, she just couldn't finish it all. We'll definitely be back, and much sooner than later!

Thank you for the good food and exceptional service, Happy Dragon! We look forward to seeing...

I found authentic Chinese food! I love this place! My whole family loves this place! We have been twice and I'm ecstatic we found such a good Chinese food restaurant near where we live. I love it because the food reminds me so much of the food we ate in China. Our family lived in Shenzhen for a couple of years and we really miss the flavors we used to eat everyday. The food at Happy Dragon is a mix of some typical American-Chinese food along with several dishes that are truly authentic tasting! The homestyle shrimp dish and the black pepper chicken tastes a lot like dishes I had in Shenzhen and the Lo Mein they offer tastes just like our AYi (hired help in China) used to make for us at home. Normal spaghetti noodles with a smoky, soy sauce, wok-fried flavor. I chatted with the server, a really friendly, nice young man and he explained his father, the owner, is from China and he developed the recipes. It's a tough job to want to serve authentic Chinese food to an American crowd with American-Chinese food expectations. The food is delicious, affordable, quick and convenient - and we also get a taste of our second home in China all the way here in Utah. Thank you for opening your restaurant here! We'll be returning customers for...

Based on the negative reviews I wasn't expecting much. In fact I was a bit nervous but we had ordered delivered and I expected it to also be cold. None of what I expected was true. The food has good taste not as sweet or covered in sauce like popular chains. This place is a little different than other places like going to any of the local not chain places. This is good food. Yes I would like more spice but we didn't order spicy this time. If you want more flavor you add some soy sauce or sweet and sour glaze etc. I think the negative comments are from people trolling. No need to worry this is not as bad as was reported. Is is worth trying at least once. I think some people who may not normally like Asian fare might like this as they ginger and MSG aren't as heavy. I will definitely...