N and N Food is a no frills eatery in Campsie serving up tasty Chinese dishes. There's a range of delicious boiled dumplings, steamed buns, rice dumplings or bowls of slippery, saucy noodles for bargain prices. But there are a couple of things you need to know before you visit!
Monica and I hesitate slightly when walking into N and N Food There's a pile of boxes waiting to be unpacked in a corner and bright orange cardboard covered fridge doors and freezers hold a range of dumplings and Zongzi and on the counter a Maneki-neko cat sits waving. But then the owner stands up and greets us with a smile. N and N food is run by Guiping Xu and is named after her daughters Nancy and Nicole.
Monica had found N and N foods and we were aware that there is no English menu, just a wall poster with pictures of the dishes available plus some posters of wheat, pork belly and chilli sauce. But Guiping is friendly and takes our order as soon as we walk in. Google translate helps us a little and she pushes us towards the dumplings but we are both noodle lovers.
As we are visiting at 12pm this morning's breakfast congee and the steamed buns have sold out as N and N Food opens at 4am (yes!). A couple of other things aren't available but soon we find ourselves ordering 3 noodle dishes, 2 dumplings and 1 zongzi before getting gently scolded by Guiping that it's too much food. "We're going to take the rest home to our husbands," we explain. Mr NQN loves it when I bring the food home as that means he gets to eat the food without leaving our house and I love it because it means I don't have to make dinner.
Tea, water and boxes of tissues sit to the side for customers to help themselves to. There is only Coke and 100 Plus soft drink available to purchase. Monica and I take a seat outside and watch the people in Anzac Mall chatting, smoking and socialising. Everything is cooked fresh and after 20 minutes or so, our food is ready.
Both types of dumplings come with a spicy, rich sesame seed laden chilli sauce. The pork and dill is delicious. I've only really seen them in a few places so it's always nice to get that herby hit of fragrant dill.
Guiping recommended the chive and pork boiled dumplings and these are very good. But dare I say that I preferred the dill ones for their stronger, more aromatic flavour.
The names of these noodles are all in Chinese and I only have the English translation thanks to Guiping's daughter Nancy. The chicken noodles come in a glossy sauce with the flavour of Shaoxing cooking wine. It is pure comfort food with silky noodles and bone in pieces of soft chicken.
A lot of the noodles look different to how they look in the picture on the wall but these Chongqing noodles are spicy (there are two chillis in the pic). They have delicious Szechuan peppercorns with plenty or pork mince, peanuts and green onions in it. We both love these noodles and if you like a bit of spiciness I recommend these.
The noodles on the bottom of the left menu look a bit like spaghetti Bolognese so I was curious to try them but these caused a bit of confusion. When she took our order and read it back to us, she tsked and shook her head saying that all of the noodles we had ordered were very similar so we took these noodles off but these end up on our order anyway. These noodles are called Zhaijang black bean sauce noodles with sliced cucumber and are on the fresher side with less of a punchyness to them than the ones above I did like these but out of the three I really loved the other two noodles a bit more.
Monica unwraps the string around the zongzi and it's steaming hot. The zongzi are delicious with plenty of fatty pork and chicken inside them and seasoned rice. They could use a touch of salt to them but they're really good.
After we finish eating Guiping sits down at our table with us and asks what we think of her food. She explains that she has only been open for 2 months but business is tough in Campsie. Prior to N and N Food she had a food business in Chatswood that did well. Then she gets up and gently scolds us again for ordering too much food.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever get scolded for ordering too much food? Do you order extra food so that you can take it home for dinner?
This meal was independently paid for.
N and N Food
11 Anglo Rd, Campsie NSW 2194
Open 7 days Monday to Friday 4am-7:30pm
Saturday 4am-6:30pm
Sunday 8am-6.30pm
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