Happy Days Chinese Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Honolulu

Come to find out, you don't need to be in a Chinatown to have good Chinese food! I had this place bookmarked for a while but we ended up at another establishment due to a coin toss decision. This time, my spouse and I met some Oahu friends here for an early lunch. They open at 9am! Wow!

ATMOSPHERE: Don't be scared by the way it looks on the outside. The inside is actually decent and fairly clean. It's a big space with lots of tables that filled up quickly as the day progressed.

PARKING: The easiest parking is behind the restaurant in the paid lot shared with other businesses. There is no validation but our charge was affordable.

MENU: Dim sum (with carts) along with a huge traditional menu. Pricing is very affordable.

FOOD: I had my usual favorites including pork shu mai, chicken feet, steamed look funn with shrimp and custard tarts. I loved everything as they were fresh and flavorful. The look funn came with the soy-based sauce to the side, a plus in case you want more or less of it. I of course wanted more as it had a crazy good taste! Not as salty as traditional shoyu but with a hint of sweetness. If you know what it is they use, please let me know! I did try something new which was taro stuffed into an airy shell akin to shredded wheat cereal. I didn't care for it as the taro had an odd rancid taste like the smell of sour milk.

Minute Chicken Cake Noodles Ever since I saw pics of this dish at other businesses, I had to try it somewhere as it looked so delish! The menu lists cake noodles, but it actually came with pan fried noodles which are deep-fried and crunchy. The gravy wasn't as savory as I had imagined but was still very good nonetheless. The chunks of marinated chicken were tender and tasty. Big portion for the price. Highly recommended.

SERVICE: Some of the ladies were very brash in the typical Chinese way. Our waters were constantly topped off. Walk up to the counter to pay.

OVERALL: Very good food and prices with everything available. If the service were better they'd easily be a five star...

Went in happy, ate too much, and left feeling unhappy. No fault of Happy Days though - who knew a single egg tart could push me over the edge?

I love everything about Dim Sum, being able to eat right away, watching the carts go around, and having an endless supply of food at the end of my chopsticks. I've been on a mission lately to find a dim sum place, in or out of town, that could rival Happy Days and haven't found any yet - despite claims by others as "The Best Dim Sum", "Good Dim Sum", and a plethora of other ads that never quite lived up to bold statements.

I enjoy Happy Days because it's moderately priced, has an inexpensive lot in the back, and fast service. The staff are a little pushy, but nothing compared to some recent ventures.

The food is standard fare - from sticky sticky rice, stuffed eggplants, bean curd, egg tarts, to the not so (at least in my book) duck feet. Everything is quite tasty and some dishes cooked up in front of you. I haven't ordered any of their "regular' dishes, and while I would have no qualms about it based on their dim sum dishes, just haven't made it.

Parking in the back, off 12th, is cheap and the only nearby municipal lot. The first 30 min is free and first hour is 75 cents. The best time to go seems to actually be lunch hour - they're at full staff and of the half dozen times I've been there, have never had to wait.

The staff is a little pushy, but usually stop before placing things on your table and telling you want it (something my last dim sum place would be good to take note of).

All in all a great place. There's tons of other restaurants that offer dim sum that I've yet to review, but Happy Days is makes a strong push to be among...

The food here is pretty good but the service is not. To be fair I've only been here for dim sum. It gets pretty crowded. There's a bit of parking but it's paid.

Update: This place pre-covid was pretty good. The food was decent, but there were usually plenty of parking so I would come here when I didn't want to deal with the parking situation in Chinatown. After we got hit with covid, a quality of the food seems to have gone down. I don't know if it was because they had to freeze their food and that's why the quality of the dim sum was not as good as before. There were some dishes that it was pretty obvious that it was frozen because it didn't have that chewy texture that it normally does; it was very crumbly and has that old oil taste. I would not have minded as much except for the reaction that I got when I mentioned it to them. They had told me that I didn't know what I was talking about and that that is how it's supposed to taste. This made me a little upset because the pan fried turnip cake and the pan fried taro cake is one of my favorite dishes for dim sum. Being Chinese, I grew up eating dim sum almost every other week so I definitely do know what these things are supposed to taste like. Normally I would give places several chances before not coming back but I don't know if I would actually come back to this place since none of the things that I ordered was good. It was very subpar. The two stars were for the parking situation and the openness of...