Cheap & Cheerful: Sun's Noodles, Rockdale

Sun's Noodles in Rockdale is a hidden gem Chinese restaurant. This unassuming but cheap and cheerful eatery serves up delicious Cantonese food in generous portions. We order 5 dishes and the bill comes up to $101. So what is the food like and why does it have such a following?

It was the day that I was flying out for Switzerland and leaving Mr NQN and the boys behind. I had some dinners prepped for him but I had run out of steam to cook anything else. "Let's go out to lunch," I said to him, "We'll order some things and then you can eat them for lunch and dinner."

Sun's Noodles has been open for around 14 years and is located down a strip mall area of Rockdale on King Street. There's a car park nearby as well as street parking available. And when I say that they're "cheap and cheerful" at Sun's I mean it. When I called them to see if we could eat in, the guy that answered was friendly and offered to hold a table for us which was nice considering that the listing says that they don't rake reservations and they only have about 5 tables.

Sun's Noodles only takes cash so make sure to bring some along with you. There's a Chinese and English menu and it spreads over several laminated pages. I got a little overwhelmed knowing what to order since there wasn't one dish that everyone ordered because the menu was so vast. I end up asking for recommendations. You order and pay at the counter and they'll bring your food to you. The cutlery and a tissue box are on the table. There is bottled water in the fridge but they also say that you can buy drinks from outside and bring them in so I pop into a grocery store nearby for a coconut water.

Soon after we order the bowls start hitting the table. The first is a chicken hot pot with noodles. This is an enormous bowl with egg noodles and a light curry soup and plenty of chicken, onion and green beans. The steam rises up in the cool Autumn weather and after one spoonful I decide that this is what I want to eat on every cold day. It's warming, delicious and I break up the seasoned chicken to get some in every spoonful.

They described Sar Cha chicken as spicy satay chicken. To me, it has chilli and garlic flavours with spring onion, white onion and capsicum in a sizzling hot pot. Each piece of the bone-in chicken has so much flavour to it and has an appealing sticky sweetness to it. Next time I'd order some steamed rice to go with it (I thought it came with rice).

Another sizzling bowl arrives and it's the curry beef brisket hot pot. The curry sauce is thick and creamy and the curry beef brisket pieces just melt in the mouth. I fish out a tender, small potato and follow this with a bite of that gloriously soft brisket. This is another winter dish to have again and again.

I didn't realise that the dry fried chicken with noodles was similar to Char Kway Teow because that was also on the menu. The flat rice noodles are soft and slippery and there's a good amount of chicken.

We also wanted some vegetables to go with our food so we went with their recommendation of pork fat choy sum. The baby choy sum has the perfect texture to it with a lovely crispness to every bite with chunks of pork belly for flavour.

When I check the time I see that we're done in under an hour so I can add the word fast to cheap and cheerful!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever over order so you have leftovers to take home?

This meal was independently paid for.

Sun's Noodles

Shop 9/4 King St, Rockdale NSW 2216

Phone: 0480 701 423

Monday 11 am–3 pm, 5–8 pm

Tuesday to Saturday 11 am–3 pm, 5–9 pm

Sunday closed