**** Sunny Noodle is now Spicy Noodle
Of course one of the first stops we made after returning from Hawaii was to Sizzling Pot King for takeout. While in the parking lot waiting, I noticed a newish restaurant in the strip mall named Sunny Noodle. I was a bit curious so I headed on over during a slow weekday to check the place out.
The place is spartan, though clean.
I noticed that ordering here is done strictly with QR codes, something that I've gotten used to in my travels.
Looking over the menu and the condiments, I made this out to be more Northern style Chinese. Though the menu had a bunch of liang cai, sort of Sichuan cold dishes, and items like yang rou chuanr, lamb skewers, even xiao long bao, which made things confusing. The young lady was very friendly, but when I asked about the region of China where the owners/chef was from she acted a bit coy and said, "it's North, Northern China." I tried to get some clarification, but that's basically all the info I got out of her.
I had basically seen variations of noodle soup and a couple of items that interested me. So, I went with the "House" Beef Noodle Soup($14.99).
The broth was clear and lacking in beefiness, was overly salty, and pretty "plain". The beef while a bit on the chewy side, had good flavor.
The noodle were hard rather than "springy".
Not quite what I enjoy in Beef Noodle Soup.
I had seen "Beef Wheat Cake" on the menu, which I took to be Xian Bing. When I asked if it was, the young lady seemed quite surprised. So, I ordered 2 at $1.50/piece.
You can tell one was pan fried a bit longer than the other. The crusts were hard and chewy; like a good amount of rice flour was used. The beef filling was very tasty though and a good dash of block vinegar helped things along. These were pretty small overall.
A couple of days after my meal, I heard that Candice had dropped by, so I sent her a text asking if she knew what region the owners were from. And to my surprise, it was Dōngběi! Well, maybe the lamb skewers…..but no suan cai, we still make several batches a year, and rice noodles for the soups, and what about the XLB? On the positive side, Candice identified two items she had eaten at Sunny Noodle and thought were decent. So I returned armed with that information.
Unfortunately, they were out of one of the recommended items, the Mixed Smoked Meat. They did however have the Spicy Beef Tripe ($8.99) which I would have never thought to have ordered in a Dongbei Cai restaurant.
This was by far the best item I had from Sunny Noodle. The tripe was light and crunchy, while it wasn't overly spicy. there was a nice refreshing component to the dish, along with all the wonderful cilantro that worked in perfect harmony.
In need of another dish, I went with the Leek-Pork-Shrimp Jiaozi. It's kind of funny, 12 dumplings for $14.99…..welcome to todays pricing where each dumpling costs almost a buck-and-a-quarter.
Actually, these were not bad, even though I got the Beef-onion instead of what I ordered.. The wrappers were a bit on the brittle side, in need of a bit more "pull". A couple of them had burst during the cooking process. This caused the fillings of the dumplings to become "waterlogged" during the boiling process.
The fillings, while a bit on the salty side were tender, juicy, and full of flavor if a bit on the salty side. The black vinegar helped balance everything out. Not bad.
My meals at Sunny Noodle were interesting; it's basically a hands-off business, you order via QR code, your food is dropped off along with the check, and then you pay. Actually, in these "days" of Covid, I don't mind that at all. I was the only customer in the shop during both of my visits, though there was a steady stream of takeout orders heading out the door.
I'm not sure if I'll return anytime soon, but it was nice trying someplace new for a change.
Sunny Noodle
8046 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92111
Currrent Hours:
Daily 11am – 830pm
I set about reheating the broth and moving the noodles and proteins to a proper bowl. One thing I noticed was that the broth really didn’t have that wonderful lemongrass-beefy fragrance of typical bun bo hue broth. Though I was prepared for the lack of banana blossom and such this time.
Well, that decent bowl of 
The noodles were the same as the NRM. The duck was much better this time around; you can tell by the color, there as much more five spice flavor and the meat, while on the tough side had taste. The skin was still a bit rubbery for my taste, but the fat had been rendered nicely. This was a definite improvement.
In the far corner, the former Sinjeon Food Sys (prior it was CDD Tofu and Grill) has turned into Krab Bros- a boiled seafood restaurant. 
A simple menu is always appreciated. 
The lunch shrimp platter ($14.99) with chosen flavors of original butter, garlic parmesan and Bros Cajun was an excellent choice. This platter has ten shrimp, a boiled egg, sausage, corn and tiny whole potatoes, all coated in the chosen flavors. The shrimp were quite large, very plump and had good flavor when I tasted a bit without any flavor coating. I liked the sausage, egg and corn and especially the small, skin-on potatoes; it was a well balanced meal and quite enough to share.
I walked over to Boba Bar and ordered a mango slush ($5) for us to share. We had already shopped inside the Zion Grocery store.
Now, the piano as well as the teddy bear are gone from the Food Court platform. Damn Covid-19!
Man, this was pretty big. Crust was nicely charred. Though the first two bites gave things away. The slices weren't cut all the way thru and the resulting dough was tough and saturated and not in a good, Neopolitan Pizza way. Nice truffle fragrance, but no truffle flavor. There was a ton of tasteless mozzarella. The crust, while nicely charred wasn't very yeasty, but was too salty. I liked the bacon, that almost had a flavor of jamon, which gave the pizza almost all it's flavor, but there just wasn't enough of that to overcome all that cheese. Too little radicchio or carmelized onion to make much of a difference.
It looked pretty much the same and I'll say that the fries where just as good, slightly crisp, with a creamy interior as it used to be.
So I took a bite and…got all bread? What the heck. It seemed like about half the sandwich was all bread. Strange. I'm thinking either they are still getting used to cutting the bread in the correct manner or they are using less ingredients. Anyway, the shrimp didn't seem of the same quality and seemed overcooked and rubbery; it also looked smaller than before, see the photo below. That's the cap from the little container of sauce for the fries.
These wings were just drenched in sauce. There was a huge pool of sauce at the bottom of the box. The two or three pieces on the top, while over sauced held up fine, but the pieces on the bottom were a soggy mess.
Doesn't even look like it's from the same place, does it?
A sort of 'Gastropub' atmosphere with about 20 beers on tap, various seating sections (including covered outdoors), we were given a bottle of chilled water along with chilled glasses with our menu.
A simple menu-and there is a Monday-Friday Happy Hour, too (from 4-6:30)
We decided to try the Cheese Curds ($12). Wisconsin cheese, breaded and fried. If you bite into a hot one, it does indeed 'squeak'..but otherwise it's just a good bunch of piece of breaded fried cheese, served with a very nice homemade Ranch.
The Stuffed Jumbo Portobello mushroom ($15) can be a meal. Cream cheese, mozzarella and parmesan topped with a panko crust and placed in balsamic syrup…Oh my!
Cross section shows how many flavors you can get in a bite. 
We also ordered a Cobb Salad ($14). This tasted really good, very fresh ingredients (egg, bacon, avocado, tomato, gorgonzola and a nice Blue Cheese dressing. The presentation…eh. 
The menu is on the wall, or you can scan a QR code and read the menu on your phone. 
The Mister wanted Boiled Tofu, and it was furiously boiling when brought to the table! He had ordered the 'Chef's Special' ($13) which included shrimp, pollack roe, clam, oyster, mushroom and kimchi. (white rice is included, but the multigrain rice option is an extra $2; get it). Great, fresh seafood and smooth, satisfying tofu.
I've been craving something from a hot stone pot (because crispy rice). Ordering the "Chef's Special Hot Stone" ($20) was just the flavor filled melange I wanted. Marinated beef rib eye as well as beef short ribs over the sizzling rice, topped with plump shrimp and small but flavorful scallops really hit the spot. 
Your condiments are brought to the table after ordering.