Munchie Adventure: Happy Mom's Kitchen, New Westminister

Just joined Groupon! So I wanted to spend the $10 credit they gave me as a welcoming gift before it expired, and decided to get the one for Happy Mom's Kitchen (apparently also called Happy Valley Chinese Kitchen which was in Burnaby). The deal I got was $10 for $20 of food (so pretty much free for me :D) We ordered about $35 of food... (which in my opinion, is rather pricey for lunch for 3 people)

Restaurant: Happy Mom's Kitchen (visit their menu here)
Location: #821 12th St., New Westminster
Cuisine: Canadian Chinese, Taiwanese
Price range: $7.50-15
Date of visit: April 19, 2012

Atmosphere: 3/5
Staff/service: 3.75/5
Food variety: 2.75/5
Food quality: 2/5
Buck worthy? 2/5

The owner was very friendly, didn't expect a Caucasian (not to be racist or anything) to know much mandarin, but he was trying so hard, it was really cute. And he was very respectful, and kept asking us if everything was ok, and how everything was.

Their bubble tea was cheap, and I should've expected something wrong with that, but ordered it anyways. It was... bad. REALLY. I got a melon milk slush bubble tea ($3.50), and they made it from powder, and the ice was chunky. You can feel the powder still there in the drink ><"

They had a bunch of stuff on their menu, including All-Day-Breakfast, but we decided on the lunch menu instead. There are a bunch of combo dishes you can get, and I got the almond chicken + fried rice + sweet and sour pork ($8.25). The pork was really good, and the chicken wasn't bad (a bit mushy) but the rice-- IT WAS SO SALTY x.x I almost died. I hope they improve it eventually...

We also ordered Chef's Special Chow Mein-soft ($8.75), which was also on the very salty side, and VERY OILY. After a bit, we had to drain the oil from the plate first before we could down the noodles. Uhhh on the bright side, they're not cheaping out on oil? xD This is a very Canadian-Chinese dish, the noodles were definitely not the normal Chinese kind!

To try more variety, we also got the Taiwanese beef noodle soup ($7.75). It was seasoned well, very rich beef broth, but again, too salty. The noodles were cooked just right, and the beef was tender. This was probably the best thing we ordered, but compared to other places... there's still a lot of room for improvement. This was also a bit spicy, which didn't help much with the saltiness.



Don't think I'll revisit, never have been a fan of Canadian-Chinese food, and it's pretty far from where I live, if I had to drive 40 mins for food, I'd definitely go somewhere more worthwhile (not trying to be mean).