New Happy Garden Restaurant

New Happy Garden has been the Chinese takeout counter at the edge of Elora Village since 2010, working out of a storefront on Wellington Road 7. It is built for pickup rather than a sit-down night — order online or by phone, collect, and take it home — and the menu is wide enough that it has become the village's default weeknight Chinese order rather than a special-occasion stop. Parking sits right out front in the Village Inn lot, which suits a place whose whole rhythm is pull up, grab the order, and go. With sixteen years behind the counter, it has settled into being the town's reliable Chinese order.

The menu reads like a full Canadian-Chinese map. Two dishes carry the house name: the New Happy Garden Soup, a loaded war wonton, and the New Happy Garden Fried Rice, built with spicy chicken and shrimp. Around them sits the familiar spread — Chicken Wings with General Tso Sauce, General Tao Chicken, Lemon Chicken, Sweet & Sour Chicken Balls, Singapore Style Noodles in curry sauce, Shanghai Chow Mein, and Ma Po Tofu. The appetizer wings come four ways — deep fried, honey garlic, General Tso, and tossed in a spicy sauce — alongside pan-fried dumplings and deep fried mushrooms. The chicken section runs deeper into sesame and orange, the beef section into almonds-and-vegetables and a green-pepper black bean version, and the rest spreads across seafood, chop suey, egg foo young, sweet-and-sour pork, BBQ pork and rice boxes.