Happy Wok Asian Diner — Restaurant in Liberty Hill

To preface this review: both my husband and I work food service and have been in management, I personally have been a server/foodrunner/manager for over 3 years. This was one of the WORST dining experiences we've had.

We arrived and it was fairly busy. We were told to seat ourselves so we did. No one ever came to give us menus, so we grabbed to go ones. We patiently waited as we saw two tables arrive 10 minutes after us (yes we were watching the clock) and were served before us. Whatever, it's busy and the boy working obviously was overwhelmed. We gave him some grace. It wasn't until 20 minutes total of being there that he noticed us and came to take our order. Another 15 minutes later, our food arrived...before our drinks. Both tables that arrived after us got their food before we got our drinks OR food at the table. We took notice of another server girl running around...doing nothing to help the poor boy. We never saw him again after he took our order, just the girl running our food and drinks. He seemed so defeated and beatdown, I assume he had a rough night and I don't blame him from the lack of support from his coworkers.

The girl seemed more experienced, but was worse at her job. All. she did was bus tables. Not sure why they needed to make room for more people when they clearly couldn't handle the tables they already had. We thought she was just a busser/host at first until we noticed her taking care of other tables. So we were confused as to why she was not helping her coworker. Even if she couldn't take orders, I could list a million other ways that she could've been of better assistance to the server. The managers/owner obviously lack the experience or care to properly run a restaurant.

The food arrives and it is atrocious! It was obviously frozen prepackaged chicken. It was flavourless and dry. The fried rice was clearly not made correctly as it was basically just the jasmine rice with vegetables in it. The Dr. Peppers we ordered were better than the food, but the CO2 was cut low so as to save syrup, so even that was mid-tier. There was even a hair in my food (which my husband and I knew knew was neither of ours and perfectly matched the female servers length and thickness, I also saw her touching her hair at many different points during our visit). We've had better Chinese food frozen from HEB.

So all of this clearly boils down to management/ownership. This store is clearly just a cash grab and not run by someone who actually cares about the quality of the food/service they provide. From the lack of training/support, the food quality, and the way the restaurant is run is all horrible. Figure out a better system than allowing a self-seating arrangement if your employees struggle to keep up. Splurge on the better quality food items. Make sure your employees are properly trained and confident to handle a Friday night rush. I promise you will yield better profits in the long run.

We are overall very disappointed with the restaurant as a whole. We obviously will not be returning, and I hope that the owner cares enough to improve. I just feel bad for the poor servers making $2.50/hr because I can't imagine anyone could make decent tips here, given everything we experienced and it seems others have as well, judging by the reviews. We only tipped because we know how it is to live off tips. I hope that poor server boy leaves and finds a better job with a team that actually cares enough to be supportive...

This was $71 worth of take out order. 2 noodle dishes and 1 dish that required Rice. I was asked if I wanted Steamed or Fried Rice. I responded, "Fried Rice"

I pick up my order, give a 10% tip (which should be ridicules for a take out order, but their system requires a response.

Drove home, NO RICE. So, one of my family had a dish of vegetables to eat. I called and explained. He apologized and offered either they could refund $2. OR I could get 2 portions of rice the next time I came in.

I responded, that this dish was not complete, and the entire cost of the dish should be refunded. They said NO. They could offer $2. I followed up with; IF I were sitting in your restaurant, and the dish ordered was made wrong, the restaurant would remake the entire dish. HE agreed. I said what is the difference in having to remake and entire dish, and refunding the cost of the dish that was made wrong / incomplete.

Again, he stated, "there really isn't a difference". Which I agreed. But he remained silent. So, I responded, that they had my phone number, when they decide to do the right thing and refund the cost of the dish, that someone who cared could call and inform me.

In the mean time, we will have to pool the 2 noodle dishes and split between 3 people. Because who wants to eat a dish...

We eat here regularly, and they are exceptional for being consistently good. My boyfriend has ordered the Mongolian beef extra spicy for over a year now, and I order sesame chicken, general tsos chicken, Szechuan chicken, or kung pao chicken. The steamed rice is always fresh and cooked correctly, the crab rangoons actually taste like crab, and the pork egg rolls are awesome. I dont care for their lo mein, but otherwise everything we have ever tried has been fresh, tasty, and contained plenty of meat. My only complaint is that if you want it to be spicy, you need to order extra spicy. I think they scale it back for the local area, nothing on the menu is default spicy to my boyfriend and I.

We always take our food to go and I call on the way to order. Its normally done before we arrive. Very quick, quicker than some drive throughs.

Also this is my favorite place to call in an order to because it only takes me 30 seconds from when I dial to when I hang up. Unless you are hard of hearing, communication should be no issue. We have only every had one service issue involving mixed up go-to orders, and they fixed it no questions.

UPDATE 11-5-2022

This place is still great. Good value, food is still good, service was...