Happy Garden

Let's get the logistics of the place out of the way. Dinner buffet is $7.69 for adults and $3.50 for kids under 10. Lunch is $5.49 for adults and $2.50 for kids. They are open from 11 a.m. - 2:30 and 5:00 - 9:00. They also have a regular menu for eat-in or carry-out.

It's your basic Chinese buffet. About a quarter of the food was not "Chinese" (mozzarella sticks, red Jell-O-type buffet items.) One thing we all noted was how clean the restaurant was. The plates, table, chairs, buffet surface, and restrooms were all very clean. All buffet items were hot and cold as appropriate. I sampled most everything on the buffet and only found one thing I didn't care for (beef), but that may have been a matter of taste. We had a few "try this" moments and we all wondered where the pork was in the pork egg rolls, but they had good flavor. The help was very friendly and made sure we had everything we needed. The hot tea tasted more like Lipton than oolong, but it was fresh and had nice flavor. The dessert cake seemed homemade rather than the "Gordon-food" frozen dessert, but I can't be sure. It was pretty good either way.

Why only three stars then, you ask? Well, the 3 star rating is listed as "Good". 4 stars is "Exceptional" and 2 stars is "average". While I think this buffet was above average for its cleanliness and for the temperature of the food (I've been to some really BAD buffets, and this one ranks on the better side of a bell curve), it was not an "exceptional" experience, which to me is "WOW we found a hidden little gem, here." If you told me you were in Tiffin and wanted Chinese, I'd send you here. However, if you asked me to recommend a place to eat lunch, this one probably won't be on the list because there's one in most every town.