Happy Family

Happy Family Restaurant III
Address: 111 N. Atlantic Blvd. #351 Monterey Park, CA 91754
Telephone: 626-282-8986
Website: N/A

Chris-
Calling all vegetarians out there. Happy Family is a 100% all you can eat buffet for vegetarians. They have normal Chinese food dishes as well, but the vegetarian buffet is what this restaurant is known for. If your looking for an inexpensive way to eat healthier then you can't miss this place. The all you can eat buffet costs $12.99, but make sure you get there early since they close at 9:15 PM.


This is one of my favorite dishes on the list. Their delicious sesame chicken. It's not really made from chicken though, it has the texture of tofu or mushrooms, but man is it tasty. I can't really describe why it's good, but whenever I think about this dish, it makes my mouth water. It's sweet, tangy and healthy too. What can be better?

I personally love broccoli, so getting this dish was a no brainer. I don't know what kind of sauce they used, but somehow they made the broccoli sweet. The broccoli was still crunchy, had a really good flavor with garlic and the fried pieces of "pork" (tofu) went great with it. I never thought vegetarian food could make me full. I literally couldn't eat another bite after going to this place.

I also have a fondness for tofu. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you do like tofu, make sure to get the tofu with spicy brown sauce. It's just amazing, I actually finished this one by myself since Ian doesn't care for tofu. Put this with some steamed rice and I'm in heaven.



RATING:Out of 5
TASTE: 5/5 High quality food with amazing flavor and richness
ATMOSPHERE: 4/5 This depends on when you get there. They are usually busy.
Service: 3/5 The service drastically depends on if they are busy or not. They only have three waitresses so getting something may take a while because they are so popular.
PRICE: Comes to about less than $20 per person.
OVERALL: 4/5 Very healthy food for cheap, but have very long wait times when they are busy.

Ian-
Located on the upper floor of this small mall is someplace that offers not only one of the tastiest places to eat, but also one of the most economical places to eat and also a healthy place to eat.

Happy Family 3 is an all vegetarian restaurant that none the less offers ‘meat’ items on the menu. Although in this case all the meat items are actually vegetarian fakes. They do some pretty amazing stuff with soy and other vegetables to give them a meat like taste and texture. Now I wont claim that the chicken always tastes like chicken or the pork always tastes like pork. But pretty much everything on the menu always tastes good.

For $12.95 you can get the all you can eat buffet which consists of a menu with 64 items on it. You may order as many of those dishes as you want. You’ll also get steamed rice, soup and some really tasty fried (or steamed) bread.

This is one place to go where the more the merrier, since then you can order more dishes and get an even broader sampling of all they have to offer. But even a group of 2 can manage to order several dishes.

Regardless of how many people you are with, I would definitely recommend ordering the dry sautéed string beans and the sesame chicken. I haven’t met anyone yet who didn’t like, and want more of, those two dishes. The ‘pork’ with broccoli is quite good. Some of my other favorite dishes are: Chicken with cashew nuts, home style deep fried tofu with hot sauce, eggplant with basil and with hot sauce, stir fried rice cake with vegetables and stir fry spinach. The minced squab in lettuce also seemed really popular last time i was there, although I didn’t get a chance to try that yet. Let me know if you have.