She goes by Chef Ye to her regulars, but her full name is Aifang Ye, the “Ai” being the Chinese character meaning “love.” Love is what Ye and her new restaurant Happy Food exude despite challenging circumstances: Her English is limited and she works mostly alone, operating Happy Food on a corner of the Chinatown-International District that — like many corners of downtown Seattle — struggles with visible signs of poverty and drug use.

Like Tanya Nguyen at nearby Chu Minh Tofu, Ye sometimes helps feed her unhoused neighbors. Volunteers who help with Nguyen’s food giveaways acted as translators so Eater Seattle could interview Ye in Mandarin.

The Happy Food owner hails from Taizhou, a coastal town in Zhejiang Province, about 200 miles south of Shanghai. She first learned cooking from her mother (who she describes as just an average cook), and by age 10 she had mastered the complexity of making zongzi (sticky rice dumplings wrapped with bamboo leaves). She upped her cooking game upon getting married and needing to cook for family, then brought that passion to bidding for the business to run a buffet-style cafeteria in a factory setting serving nearly 200 workers.

In 2019, Ye followed her husband and son to Las Vegas where they easily found construction work, while she became a pui yuet, or confinement nanny — someone who prepares meals and herbal medicines for new mothers, who in the Chinese tradition stay at home to recuperate 30 days after giving birth. She continued that work when she moved with her family to Bellevue in 2021 for a nicer environment with cooler weather. But soon, with desire to be independent and entrepreneurial, she jumped on an affordable opportunity to lease a less-than-desirable spot at the corner of 12th Avenue and Jackson to open Happy Food at the end of 2023.

Save for occasional moments when her husband comes to help, Happy Food is a one-woman show: Ye greets customers with an exuberant smile, beckons them to sit, takes orders, cooks, serves, and cleans — all with little more English than “Thank you very much.”

Happy Food’s menu is simple and understated (think “potato chips salad” and “braised chicken leg”), making it hard for diners who don’t know Chinese characters to anticipate the dishes and to know what to order. And while Zhejiang cuisine is considered one of the eight traditional cuisines of China, that’s not the restaurant theme. Ye says that her food reflects a variety of dishes she ate in Taizhou, prepared with her own spin.

What diners can count on is that the food is delicious. The stir-fried green beans pack the punch of ya cai (a type of preserved mustard green). Fish filets float in a sauce of fragrant house-made scallion oil that finds people reaching for another portion of the self-service rice. Cabbage comes rustically stir-fried in large pieces, available “plain” or spiked with vinegar. Especially popular with Asian clientele are the braised pork intestines, cut large for extra chewiness and mixed with meaty and tender King oyster mushrooms, cooked to the desired level of spiciness.

There’s more — not all of it on the menu. Ye will enthusiastically show other dishes she can make, many doughy delights like pumpkin mantou and dumplings made with mugwort in the wrappers and zesty pork and vegetables in the filling.

People are still learning about the place, perhaps skeptical of the location, but the regulars happily return. On a recent visit, a table of diners delighted in the food, saying that whether from Taiwan or different parts of China like Hong Kong and Shanghai, they feel at home when eating at Happy Food. The restaurant truly has a home-style vibe, the food reasonably priced and served with a warm smile.

Ye wouldn’t let Eater Seattle take a photo of her. She declined to talk about the homelessness and drug use endemic to the area. What’s most important, Ye says, is that “Anyone can come in and really enjoy the food. Having people enjoy it brings me happiness. I have passion for it.”