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Business & Tech

Dinner-Hour Rush at Happy Garden

This Chinese restaurant serves classic cuisine with fresh ingredients.

My companion and I arrived at the in the midst of a downpour. The rain did not keep customers away, however. There were only two people waiting on tables and, as the restaurant filled with people for the dinner hour, the two servers literally began running, determined to get the plates to the tables on time.

The breathless pace created a frantic atmosphere for awhile. A flurry of instructions and orders flew between kitchen staff and servers, who were also bussing tables. We had to wait a few minutes to give our order. Nevertheless, the wait was reasonable, considering the ratio of servers to customers.

The Happy Garden is a traditional Chinese restaurant that serves both Hunan and Szechuan cuisine for lunch and dinner. The interior Chinese décor is dominated by hues of red. The two rooms are clean and warmly decorated with comfortably padded red booths, wood floors, Chinese paintings and lanterns. There is a large-screen TV, thankfully with the volume turned very low.

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We began our meal with the appetizer sampler, which included two each of beef skewers, egg rolls, paper-wrapped chicken and fried prawns. I felt that the prawns were a little greasy, but we both agreed that the appetizers in general were tasty, and—with its subtle flavoring—the paper-wrapped chicken was above average.

The Happy Garden menu has a huge variety of entrees, including lamb, which is unusual for a Chinese restaurant, and a large selection of seafood dishes. Items that tempt me for future meals include the seafood clay pot, sizzling chicken and scallops, beef with orange peel and changsha chicken, described as “tender shreds of chicken breast flavored with hot garlic sauce and combined with green onion, cilantro and ginger—prepared wrapped in paper until the last moment to co-mingle the flavors.”

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We ordered the Lamb and Vegetable Deluxe ($9.95)  and the Kung Pao Tofu ($7.50). By this time, the dinner-hour rush had settled down, and we enjoyed our meal in a more relaxed atmosphere.

The entrees arrived steaming hot and beautiful in their mix of colors and ingredients. The chef does not skimp on the protein or on any ingredient. The lamb dish contained generous amounts of meat combined with bok choy, snow peas, mushrooms, baby corn and bamboo shoots in a delicious brown sauce. The Kung Pao Tofu was pleasingly spicy, with whole dried-red chilies and chili flakes, bamboo shoots, zucchini, green peppers and peanuts.

Both dishes were absolutely delicious and gave me reason to go back to the restaurant in the future to sample more entrees and chef’s specialties. It’s good to know, as the menu informed us, that MSG is not used; most of the vegetables are steamed and the meats double-trimmed, and the chef uses only vegetables oils low in saturated fat.

If you go to Happy Garden for lunch (11:30 a.m.–3 p.m.), you can have the lunch special served with an appetizer of the day, soup, choice of steamed or fried rice, and chow mein—a good deal with prices from $6.50-$7.50. Dinner entrees are reasonable in price, ranging from $7.95-$15.95 per person for a family dinner. The Happy Garden Chinese Restaurant serves delicious meals, and there are enough tempting choices on the menu to keep you coming back for more, for a long time.

1980 Freedom Blvd. (at Airport Boulevard). Open seven days a week: Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Sunday 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m. 831-728-4766.

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