Sunday, February 01, 2009

Happy Chops Chinese and Thai cafe 2A Grove Road London E3 5AX

Happy Chops is really a takeaway.  It sells pretty much the usual things you would expect a chinese take away to sell and the quality of food and range of dishes is really quite similar to the Golden Dragon which is a takeaway in Stepney with an entry in this blog.
 
A few tables have been put in so you can eat in as well as take away but this is really a cafe in the old slightly sloppy down at heel way of most cafes before places called cafes became trendy and expensive.
 
This cafe does sell an decent thai selection including beef, duck, pork prawn and various vegetables thai style as well as thai style noodles and rice.  there are also thai soups and thai fish cakes available.  This is a nice extra touch but I haven't tried the thai food yet so don't know about its quality.
 
I had chicken wings in salt and pepper and a hot and sour soup followed by Szechuan Pork with plain Chow Mein and a pot of chinese tea.  One nice thing about this restaurant is that you can choose to have most dishes with rice or noodles on one plate.  you still get a good plate full but not quite as much as you would if you bought separate dishes with rice in a different container or on a different plate.  Buying meals in this way drastically reduces price.  My Szechuan pork and plain chao main cost just under £5.  My total bill came to £11.50 which is pretty cheap really.
 
The food is acceptable but it is a little greasy and meat can be a bit tough.  I wouldn't go a long way to visit this takeaway and cafe but I would happily use it if I were in Mile End and I wanted a chinese meal.  Service was reasonably quick and I found the staff generally helpful and most staff seemed to speak quite good english.  I would give this place 6.5 out of 10
Good points are that it's cheap.  Service is quite friendly and speedy and portions are large.
 
Against, it's only average quality and food is a bit greasy.

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