Happy Times Bistro

I went there a year ago, but I remember we had horrible customer service. Rude service.
We ordered the Buffet hot pot option. When we asked the waitress to order a few more items (hence the BUFFET option) she told us we needed to wait because the guy in the kitchen was busy moving his car.
ok? why is that our problem because he went to move his car?
so we decided to be nice and so guess what we did? we waited for at least 15 minutes before he returned.
On top of that, whenever we needed something, the waitress was NOT available. She also decided to take her lunch break sitting a couple of tables next to us, and she made herself at home by watching TV as we dined a couple of tables away.
After waiting for proper service, we said forget it and left because we weren’t going to get it there. My husband unfortunately left his cell phone on the table and he walked back in to get it off the table. The waitress rudely asked him why we did NOT leave any tip for her.
My husband then responded, «Tip is earned, and I did not feel that you guys gave us any good customer service.»
Tips should NEVER be assumed, and you should never eat your lunch while your working on the job next to your customers WHILE watching TV.

Had a couple of their dishes. I gotta say. They do things right here. The food was great. The service was great.
I’ll admit I was a bit hesitant about how it looked from the outside, but the inside is very nice. And for once a restroom in this area that is very clean!

Great tofu. Great hot pot/​BBQ pork. Soft and tender. Tasty. The chow fan was just the right taste. Crisp but not oily burn. Sorry no photos. We ate it all too fast.
I ordered :
Beef chow fun
Pork belly tofu stone
Japanese style tufo mix mushroom

Came here for hot pot but the server told us we couldn’t order it at midnight. Ordered congee (which comes in a huge bowl) and beef chow fun with xo. Couldn’t really taste the XO. A different server told us that we could’ve ordered hot pot so I wish we could have.

I feel like this is one of the more underrated spots in the international district. Every time I’ve visited I’ve had excellent experiences with service and the food was always spectacular and hit all the right spots in my belly. Maybe me and the waitress just vibed well because she made excellent suggestions and I’ve found a dish here that has become one of my all time favorites! It’s not something on the menu but I’ve added a picture: it’s eggs with cheese, scallions and prawns. So simply, yet SO delicious! The eggs are so light and airy and the cheese gives the dish a slightly different consistency and a slight saltiness, it’s perfect! Try it with a bit of the house hot sauce! It’s awesome if you appreciate eggs the way I do. The all you can eat hot pot is also so delicious and for a very reasonable price!

Food here was actually great.
The service was good but there were a couple of things I wish they fix.
1. The waitress (or owner) seemed a bit pushy about upselling. I was there by myself and she was trying to sell me two full entrees and an appetizer. She wasn’t mean or aggresive about it, but I thought it was just a bit odd. I ended up ordering one appetizer and main dish and paid close to 20 dollars after tax and tips, but I just can’t justify spending any more than that for lunch anywhere.
2. It would be nice if they had lunch options. For main dish, I ordered pork belly and it was just too much pork belly for myself. I think it would have been great to share with another person or two. Usually I come to restaurants with more people for dinner, but for lunch, this was a bit too much of one food.
Otherwise, it was all good. This place is very clean and big and they also offer all you can eat hot pot, which I haven’t tried. They said minimum of 2 people required for hot pot but if you pay $ 20, they were willing to do it for just one person. Maybe I will try that next time.
And no, I won’t make fun of their name (although it is pretty funny).
They accepted my Visa

If anyone who works for L&I reads this review you have to check out this restaurant. They have a 10 year old working here serving meals lol! She must be one of the owners daughter as she also had a younger brother near by, but too young to work. Don’t they know anything about child labor laws? I’m sure she doesn’t have a food handlers permit neither lol!
The bistro is kind of cramped with only a couple of big tables for families, but better than Hong Kong Bistro down the street. A big plus is that they have their own parking lot across the street which is rare for a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown.
The food here is very authentic and tasted good to me even though my mom mentioned that the green beans were not fresh. A couple of my favorite dishes from dinner were the geoduck and clams. The geoduck must have been huge to serve all 13 of us with nice big slices even. The clams were very tasty and wasn’t cooked with black beans as is usual, but with minced pork. It was a nice change and I would come here again just to have that dish.
All the dishes served here come in a nice big portion and they don’t skimp on food. There wasn’t anything I disliked about what I ate here that night and wouldn’t mind coming here again to try some new dishes.
The prices seemed a bit higher than your traditional Chinese restaurants in the ID, but portion wise I don’t know of any restaurants that is so generous with their portions either. For some reason the restaurant doesn’t seem to attract much business during dinner time, but maybe more suitable for lunch. Either way it was a good first try here for me and good service too.

They are pretty good with the cuisine they serve. They also offer a lot of options with relatively cheaper prices. Not too many other all you can eat hot pots offer 19 items with no extra charge.

Another good hot pot place if you are in the ID area and craving some.
Of the two times I’ve come here, I’ve only had their hot pot so this review is for their hot pot only and not their regular dishes.
This place probably has the cheapest hot pot in Chinatown, while on the other spectrum Little Sheep’s high price will rape you like no other. The price is around $ 15-​$ 16, and there is a list on the hot pot menu of items that cost extra, like sliced fish and udon noodles just to name a few. The owner will likely pester you and ask you whether you want one of the priced items if she’s your server.
There are 6 kinds of broth to choose from, and I usually get the szechuan (spicy), satay, or superior (a clear broth). The items that come with the hot pot are not bad — you have your usual meats, the weird parts of pigs like kidneys and livers, your different balls (fish, pork, beef), and a bunch of veggies to choose from.
Service is kind of slow, but once you flag them down, they’re pretty responsive. It’s helpful, as well, to know either Mandarin or Cantonese as the servers speak one or both languages.
Finally, the hot pot comes with two kinds of hot pot sauce: the satay sauce and the soy sauce-​based one with jalapeño peppers inside.

The server there is really nice and really tries to upsell the food there! The thing is, it is convenient but food is average. Hot pot is decent but not that great; We only came back a couple times because it opens late and the server is nice and attentive.

I always come at midnight after work with my boyfriend. The first time I come in the server recommended to me their House special clam. OMG is Amazing. And the Chinese herbs soup only $ 6.99 Good price. Good service (3)

I came to eat here after taking senior photos with my friends. We came at around 3:00ish and our food took 30+ minutes for it to come out. I noticed that the customers who were already sitting down as we came in only started to get their food a little while after we came in.
The service was extremely slow and unprofessional. Although it was cute that they had their daughter bringing out our food I was wondering why they couldn’t have brought it out themselves. Even as we ordered the waitress tried to get us to order more food by asking if we wanted watermelon juice instead of water or if we wanted an extra plate of vegetables to share.
Our food came out slowly one by one. By the time my friend almost finished eating his fried udon noodles was when my other friend’s beef noodles came out.
I ordered a Singaporean Style Fried Vermicelli and it was too plain in my opinion. I could tell they use pre-​packaged shrimp that were super tiny. Didn’t give enough eggs and it wasn’t spicy enough. I enjoyed my friends’ dishes more than mine.
I wouldn’t recommend this place to any of my friends because the service was so slow. There were only 2 tables including my table that day and our food still came out really late.
The food wasn’t bad, I have had better, it was just the customer service ruined it for me.

I was here for a friend’s birthday dinner a couple months ago. We all agreed it was the worst customer experience we’ve ever experienced. We ordered Hot Pot that night but whenever we requested a new plate of food the owner/​waitress would yell out «what again?!“or «Isn’t that enough?» There was a couple times when I had to go out to the front to order more food because they were ignoring us. When we got our bill she charged us an automatic 20% tip! This wasn’t even posted in their menu.
Here’s some advice get out of the restaurant business! Your customer service is horrible.

Stay away! Tried to get hot pot from the place across the street and they were closed so I came here. Got the hot pot in the spicy soup and I was in ABSOLUTE hell for 24 hours after. Felt like someone was literally stabbing me with a butcher knife in the stomach. Was throwing up fire and guarantee I got food poisoning. The food they brought us was frozen and the broth instantly got a thick, nasty film on the top the moment we shut off the gas on the stove. I wouldn’t wish this place on my worst enemy. Made me hate hot pot and I used to love it. I work in this area and I will warn as many people as I can

Good food, well presentation, wide selection, friendly staff and just knew that they have free parking right across the Cajun place (opposite corner of Happy Times Bistro). I also like just calling in and ordering something I wanted without looking at their menu and come pick it up 10 to 15 minutes later!
However, I did try their hotpot a few months ago and it wasn’t that good back then, but I’d try it again when the weather gets chilly again.

Happy Time Bistro hit the spot! #8 on our tour of ID restaurants and we will be back for sure. This trip there were three of us and we decided to go for the all you can eat Hot Pot at $ 15.99 it was a total steal. YUM!
We tried two different broths; schezuan and chicken. The schezuan broth was really spicy but super tasty and the chicken broth was just right with a home cooked flavor that would be superb to help fight a cold!
Here is a list of all the delicious things we cooked in the broth; pork, beef, enoki mushrooms, radish, cabbage, meatballs, shrimp and pork dumplings. We also had some noodles but they just clumped up and Dave ate them all. My favorite were the mushrooms and beef in either broth. There were a ton of other options but after a couple heaping plates, we were all full.
The restaurant is extremely clean and the service was friendly and quick.
Next time we go, I would like to try some of the other food on the HUGE menu, but with the hot pot being so good, I doubt we will make it.

Good quiet and open late. Quality authentic Hong Kong style cruise with a dash of Cantonese drama shown on TV. An easy match of special that make this place mouth watery with it huge list menu.
It in the outskirts of Chinatown in Seattle but very recommended.

This place has a lot of dishes on the menu!
Much more selection most of the Chinese restaurants in china town. Good service for a Chinese place. U gotta try the honey garlic spareribs so bomb

The first time I came here, it was sort of by mistake. I was planning on going to the Cajun place across the street, but they inexplicably don’t open until noon. I was there at 11:30, so Happy Times it is.
It turned out to be a great find. I got the salt fish, chicken and tofu which is served in a super-​heated ceramic pot so it arrives sputtering and bubbling to your table. It tasted great, but the food is SO hot I needed to spoon it out into a smaller dish so it could cool down to eating temperature. The other meals I’ve gotten here have also been very good, but not so splendid on the presentation.
The background music they play is ‘unique.’ Sort of what you would picture for the final song as the credits roll in a soundtrack for a movie where some animé hero has just saved the girl and they’re going to live happily ever after.
The staff is great. We’re always seated immediately, at the same table. Service is quick friendly and attentive. Our server is even helping my friend with pronunciation on his latest Mandarin language lessons.

My all time favorite hot pot place.
All you can eat for $ 14. They do have a $ 8 fee if you over order food though but I never been charged that cause I always get the perfect amount. You get to choose two different types of broths. They have about 6 different broths you can choose from. I always get the chicken soup broth and schezuan spicy broth.
The all you can eat items for hot pot that I always order is:
Beef slices, fish balls, veggies (napa cabbage only), enoki mushrooms, clear noodles and tripe. I used to get the meat or beef balls but they dissolve in the broth if u leave it for too long.
Service is mediocre. There’s an older lady who works there that barely speaks English. We always run out of the clear noodles, cause they give little amounts at a time, and asked for more and she brought out egg noodles instead. I thought it would be clear that we wanted more of the same noodles. No biggie though. She gracefully went in the back and brought us more of the correct noodles we wanted.
Haven’t tried any of the items on the regular menu but if you enjoy hot pot this is a wonderful and tasty place to try out. My boyfriend and I are regulars. Wayyyyy better than boiling point in Bellevue :)