Editor's Rating
Happy Day Restaurant is probably not a new name, but do you know that this family restaurant which is located at Juanda street, Central Jakarta, has been existing for almost 22 years? Personally, I think it’s amazing for a single restaurant to be exist for that long, especially in the always-competitive F&B business industry like in Jakarta.
Happy Day Restaurant begins back in 1993, when the founder – a cooking lover and foodie, met two Swiss master chefs, and decided to open a restaurant which offers cuisines from all over the world, especially from America. With the motto “Party on Each Table”, I was amazed by the variety of menu they have, from East to West, they have them all.
FYI, Happy Day Restaurant is one of the brand managed by Imperial Group, along with several other renowned brands like Imperial Kitchen, Imperial Lamian, Imperial Treasure, Imperial Cafe, Imperial Cakery, and Yumzaa.
Although this outlet has been around for almost 22 years, I had never visited this place before. I heard that few years ago, they renovated the restaurant and gave it the look we see now. Let the photos do their job!
Upon entering, we were quite surprised to see how big the place is, and how different it is from our initial imagination. From outside, the restaurant doesn’t look big, but it is actually very spacious. With high ceiling in the inner part of the area and lots of big trees decorations, it looks like a typical American country-style restaurant at the first glance. I love the warm-colored wooden furniture which dominates the place, with green touch here and there, and also the creative bucket lampshade hanging everywhere. So cute and chic at the same time!
Not only the main dining area, Happy Day also provides more specific dining areas, like this one below: with quilted leather couch and brick wall, it looks very comfortable and inviting. And the other side has this blue-ish wallpaper which looks so nice when we dine in with family especially people who bring kids.
My (and probably most all of us photo-takers XD) most favorite area would be the smoking area, which is the most beautiful room in the restaurant, thanks to the direct access to natural light from glass windows as well as glass ceiling covered by plants. Not only the room is bright, the brick wall and the exotic tile floor really bring up entirely different atmosphere to the place. I had never known that such room actually exists in this restaurant!
The beautiful artificial maple tree in the center of the room beautifies the room by some hundred percents and whoever think about adding this decoration is a genius. XD
The best spot at smoking area. Just beautiful and it needs a single shot on the blog, LOL.
Moving on to the food and beverages.
Like I stated earlier, Happy Day offers MANY varieties of menu, from East to West. Let’s say, they have Indonesian food from appetizers and soup, seafood, rice and noodle, etc; Italian food like pastas and pizzas; Western food like burgers, sandwiches, and steaks; Chinese food from dimsum, soup, seafood, congee, rice, noodle, and other dishes; Desserts (East and West) and many kinds of beverages.
Prices for F&B range from IDR 8,900 to 115,900.
Let’s see what we tried this time!
Mushroom Soup IDR 18,900
I always love mushroom soup for a starter, and I was happy to find that our lunch would be started with one. The soup portion was quite big, and it smelled and tasted good, thanks to the generous chopped mushrooms inside the soup. However, I found it a bit too thick, not creamy-thick, but more towards starchy. I think it would be better to keep it a little bit thinner because it was already tasty without having to be thickened.
Aglio Olio Spaghetti IDR 31,900
Aglio Olio is not really my favorite way of cooking pasta, but I must admit I love Indonesian-style of Aglio Olio. While the real Aglio Olio is usually too light for me (I love thick, creamy white sauce pasta BTW, go figure), what I mean by Indonesian-style is that in many restaurants here in Jakarta, I love it when they put orange chili inside!
This spaghetti was quite satisfying in sense of pasta’s softness, the big chunks of tasty sausages, generous spice sprinkles on top, and of course, the surprising effects of spiciness from the orange chili. If you don’t like spicy food, you can also order the ones without the chili, convenient!
Beef Lover Pizza IDR 31,900
The pizza was a thick crust pizza with generous toppings, it didn’t look amazing or whatever, but since I love thick crust pizza, I was excited to try it. The dough had this texture of instant pizza dough we can buy at supermarkets, it doesn’t mean it was bad, though. For a pizza with a name of “beef lover”, I didn’t find it too “beefy” and “meaty”, but it was okay for me because I was happy with overloaded cheese.
The cheese was so yummy especially when it was eaten warm, loved the seasoning sprinkles too.
Monster Cheese Burger IDR 73,900
This cheese burger isn’t called “monster” for nothing, as the size is enormous and can be enjoyed by 1-4 person. I really like the presentation because the big burger is accompanied with beautiful greens and salad by the side, and already cut into 4 parts with Happy Day toothpicks stabbed in each parts.
Basically the burgers contain of thick beef patty, cheese slices, tomatoes, lettuce, and pickles. The buns were somehow great because they were grilled partly and had crunches here and there, plus I have a thing for top burger bun with sesame sprinkles. XD The beef patty looked overdone, but despite its looks and thickness, it was actually not dry, and I was amazed to find out that it was still juicy enough. I love how it tasted as I believe it was seasoned by peppers and I almost felt like I was eating black pepper sauced beef or something, LOL. The other condiments or vegetables were fresh and helped in digestion, although the pickles were a bit bland for me. Overall, this I would recommend to try.
Chocolate Melt IDR 28,900
For the dessert, we tried this combination of hot and cold chocolate. The molten chocolate cake was soft and smooth, with generous fillings of chocolate lava, and paired with unique taste of chocolate and vanilla twist ice cream. Both the cake and ice creams had distinctive fragrance and flavor, which I suspected coming from additional vanilla essence. It was a typical “old school” flavors of dessert, which brought me some nostalgic moments back to the old days.
Happy Day Delight IDR 26,900
We tried 2 kinds of mocktails, the first one was Happy Day Delight, which is a mix of melon juice, soda, and Grenadine syrup. The taste was actually more towards watermelon with a twist of citrus flavor, very light and refreshing.
Summer Punch IDR 17,900
The Summer Punch is a mix of Orange, Passion Fruit, and Lime, with chopped Strawberry & Kiwi fruits, added with basil seed (selasih) and jelly.
This drink has so many ingredients that I was kinda lost when it comes to describe the taste. The dominant taste would be the orange followed by passion fruit, with a slight bitterness from lime. The chopped fruits like strawberries and kiwi also had distinctive flavors so they kind of overlapped each others. However, I must give it to the basil seed and round jelly toppings as both of these really added some “fun” to the drink!
Although we tried some menu in Happy Day this time, I was surprised that there was no steak menu served that day. Actually as much as I know, Happy Day is popular for its sizzling steak dishes which are served on hot plates. As some of us who joined this event are probably around the same age with the restaurant itself, I thought it would have been better if they served some signature dishes like the steak as to introduce more about the signatures and its kind.
Overall, our visit to Happy Day Restaurant this time was a great experience. Food were decent, and the prices are so affordable it’s not even funny! Service was awesome, especially because the waitresses were very attentive and also informative. Thanks to Indonesian Food Blogger (IDFB) & Happy Day for having us, although this was my second time joining their events, I am always happy to be around the people with same passion.
So, “everyday is a happy day” at Happy Day? XD
*All prices are subject to 5% service charge & 10% government tax
*The Food Escape team are not paid whatsoever for writing this post.
** This review is written based on our visit on 30 May 2015.
CONTACT US BY:
EMAIL | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | GOOGLE+
HAPPY DAY RESTAURANT
Jl. Ir. H. Juanda No. 19
Central Jakarta 10120
Phone. +62 21 385 8245
WEBSITE
Opening Hours:
Mon-Sun 10AM – 12AM
[…] Download Image More @ thefoodescape.com […]