Sunny China Restaurant

Sunny China is one of my old time favorites. When I first came to US from India, this is one of a restaurant that my fellow Indian friends took me to and introduced as Chinese Restaurant. Only much later I realized that what we ate mostly back then was more of an American-​Chinese food than Chinese food. But does that matter when the food tastes good and has better value for the money you pay?
So recently after long time, after I am used to many authentic Chinese restaurants like Lin’s, Liu Fu, Sichuan house, when one of my friends suggested this place for dinner I readily agreed just out curiosity to see how much of this restaurant is same as I remembered. And turned out, this place pretty much the same. They are still much busier for lunch than dinner. And they still have lots of ‘General Tso’ kind of dishes. But talking to the owner lady, I casually asked if they have ‘Boiled fish’. She seemed initially surprised and even though it was not in the menu, she made it for us. It was not in the same league as Liu Fu but definitely tasty. So chances are they might make other authentic dishes too but you have to ask for it.
Also, few days ago I went there for lunch. They have a usual american-​chinese lunch menu for just $ 6.50 each. For this you get your choice of soup, egg roll or chicken wing, steamed rice or fried rice. The portion size is also very decent for the price.
The service is usually good — they take up your order, serve food, refill water and check up on you at least once. No frills or chat whatsoever, unless you start chatting up. It’s family run business with owner and sons waiting table and fulfilling to-​go orders.
For a casual and quick american-​chinese (and some authentic dishes) for a cheap price, I like Sunny china. And I definitely go back.
4 stars.

UPDATE March 2014: My family has been going here and having deliveries from here for about three years now, so I can speak to the consistent quality of both food and service. I am upgrading Sunny China from a 4-​Star to a 5-​Star rating because Charlie *always* puts great attention to detail in each and every dish he lets away from his kitchen. (The lady there is Lily, his wife. She really knows every dish very well, and is great for giving advice on what suits your fancy.)
For example: instead of quickly hacking a filet of pork into ¼”-wide strips like every other Chinese chef, Charlie carefully hand-​shreds it into very thin slivers that cook instantly, leaving them perfectly tender rather than chewy from being overcooked. The result is a delicate bite of food with a lot of flavor, not some overly-​chewy mouthful of something that feels like worms because it had to be fired for so long. It also means that each gram of meat has much more surface area to which a tiny bit of concentrated sauce can cling, and that delivers a lot more flavor in each bite.
And that’s just one ingredient. When he combines this with really fresh and tender Chinese greens, green onion, slivered carrots, etc, and a thinner type of fresh wheat noodle than most restaurants use (thicker is easier to cook; thinner has a better mouth feel), and dresses everything lightly with a sauce he makes himself, it makes a Pork Lo Mein like you’ve never tasted before. That’s what I had tonight.
Sunny China is the one Chinese restaurant in the greater Atlanta area that has never let me down. And it’s worth every penny.
ORIGINAL REVIEW April 2012: My family and I really enjoy the food at Sunny China. Everything is properly seasoned, the food is beautifully cooked, and there is a lot of attention to details.
Take, for example, their egg rolls, which are the best you’ll find anywhere around. These are simple-​yet-​perfect vegetable rolls that are handmade to order using carefully cooked and (hooray!) well-​seasoned vegetables instead of the typical unseasoned cabbage-​filler-​from-​a-​bag crap you find everywhere else. They use thin rice paper wrappers and deep fry them to a crispy light golden brown, not those plaster-​like flour-​and-​egg crunchy things you find elsewhere. Do yourself a favor: try your first few bites without adding any sauce so you can savor the talent that went into them. You’ll see what I mean by «attention to detail.»
The couple that run Sunny China are two of the nicest people I’ve met in the food industry, and they take good care of their customers. Service is always great, and special orders are happily accommodated. The fish dishes are very fresh and flavorful, and the beef is concentrated and flavorful.

The woman who answered the phone to take my delivery order was rude when I was trying to make the minimum delivery. She said, «Not Enough, you Come HERE!»
Their chicken is small and insignificant. They are located in a location where there are ton of wealthy white people, but the restaurant chooses to be cheap and skimp on ingredients. Why is the Chicken so little?
You’re in a wealthy white area, please give decent food out there.

I freaking love this place! Again this is one of the spots us cheerleaders would visit before games. The $ 6.50 lunch special is very convenient. I always order sesame chicken, egg drop soup, and a chicken wing. Food comes out quick and the workers are really pleasant. Expect to see me in here next week.

Today while at work I was searching high and low for a Chinese restaurant in the area. I came across Sunny China and was very reluctant about going after reading the reviews. I had finally decided to try elsewhere BUT somehow I ended up here.
I walked in a little after 2pm and the restaurant was completely empty, exactly like the reviews before mine stated. The gentleman who took my order was very nice and my order was ready pretty fast. I ate my egg role first since I had read about them being very greasy, and it was actually really good. Once I returned to my office, I began to eat my Cashew Chicken. At first I was disappointed and was mad at myself for not listening to the reviews. The food was bland, reminded me of mall food court food. However, after eating more and more, it started tasting a little better. I actually ended up liking it. Maybe it’s because the meat at the bottom had marinated in the sauce longer.
I would actually go back, not in a hurry but the next time I am in the area and want Chinese, I may try their Mongolian Beef. All in all, it wasn’t as bad of an experience as I expected. It definitely could have been worse. I had Chinese before that had a better taste than this, but the chicken was full of gristle, yuck! I can doctor up the taste if it’s bland, but there’s nothing I can do about gristle except continue to spit it out.

horrible, horrible, horrible, the other reviews are from the people that work here!!! trust me! i work in this area right next to this dump and when i tell you from the time i walked in this place if i would have followed my first thought i would have left (wait 5 – 7 min at table before the waitress came out kitchen). but after reading the reviews i decided to give it a shot. for starters any restarant in america knows that from 12 – 1 is a busy hour hello lunch time!!! me and a co-​worker walks in and the place is empty only one table with customers (red flag #1), sign at the door says seat yourself okay not a problem. sit down and after 5min i’m looking around like hello is anyone coming to take order… after about 7min lady briskly came over with water! no menu!!! okay another 3 min past finally got menu so technically 15min of my hour lunch gone just to wait on a menu. ordered the shrimp lo mein, wonton soup, egg rolls! wonton soup was basically water with a noodle dropped into it! not a taste in the world just bland. egg roll was not an egg roll but giant grease filled spring roll! lastly my main course the lo mein, as she sat my plate down i could smell a strong burnt odor. okay i still wanted this place to be good so i continued to eat the lo mein. after about 2 bites i wanted to throw up! half of the noodels were black on the bottom from them rushing to prepare or honeslty lack of cooking skills. but my experience got even worse when i asked for the manager! the manger was the rude waitress that was serving me! when i told her my noodles were burnt she said and i quote «this is real chineese food this is how it suppose to taste». now anyone reading this review please tells me if you had burnt black lo mein at your favorite chinnese spot? i never have and love lo mein and eat regulary from a real chineese spont on lavista (lucky key). the waitress then stormed off, came back to table snached my soup bowl and said i will just charge u for your soup!!! hilarious she really appreciated my business and i was the person who nominated this dump! oh and i orderd a sweet tea and it was so sweet you could see the sugar floating around in the glass and sugar was even in the bottom of my glass! this resterant can’t even get sweet tea right and wonton soup, to me the easiest!!! don’t waste your money going here, the serivce is horrible, the food is bland and not authentic! my co worker said all he tasted in his meal was grease! this resterant will not be open to much longer!!!
owners if you ever read this i will be clapping the day you close down! go to lucky key owner and take some lessons from the staff and chef!

This is the Chinese spot I go to in Norcross. Haven’t tried too many other spots in the area, but that’s because I really enjoy the food here. And most of the other spots in the area look sketchy.
I usually get the Hunan Chicken, which is really good. They also have very good Wonton soup. I’ve only gotten take out from Sunny China, but I would stop there for lunch. I work in Atlanta, so I usually pick up food after work. It’s located right next door to the Flying Biscuit, in the plaza across the street from the Forum. Honestly, it surprises me the place is never that packed.
P. S. I’m from New York. I know good chinese food. Is this the greatest chinese I’ve tasted? No, but it’s very good and the place looks clean. It’s close to where I live and I’ll continue to get food here when I get an itch for some Chinese. Oh, and the egg rolls are good too.

I hate writing reviews sometimes. This is one of those times. I’ve been to this restaurant probably thirty times in the last 6 years. For the first three years, this place was flyin’. Yes, it’s OTP, yes, it’s in the middle of Trendy City, yes, it’s Americanized Chinese food, but their execution was deluxe. Did I Unilocal this back then? Heck, I didn’t even know about Unilocal until 20 months ago. Now, thanks in part to the late economic miasma, they’ve had to pare back due to loss of volume. Sadly, their cooking quality has slipped, just when it doesn’t need to. That’s a bad thing to do when competition for patrons and their repeat business is intensifying every day. When a friend and I had lunch there last Thursday, I only counted 12 people come in to eat in the 75 minutes we sat. I had Orange Beef, expecting something crisp, tangy, refreshing, and spicy. What I ended up with was two ticks better than OK, but it wasn’t like the Orange Beef I’ve had here several times before. My frend had Yu Shiang Pork, which he was very happy with. Both of us started with Hot and Sour Soup. Again, what happened to the lavish beef based broth of days afore? What we received was OK, but five yards short of the touchdown we had gotten used to. Sum: 3 years ago, I would’ve posted an enthusiastic 4+ stars. Today, I gotta type in 2 stars, plus 1 for auld lang syne. Sentimental sap. Old people are like that.

Salty China?
We went tonight and had an «ok» meal. If I could have given it 2 ½ stars, i might have.
The good:
Orange (or was it Mandarin) Beef was really good. The egg rolls were good, they were the size of the «bigger» egg rolls but the wrappers were the lighter ones you get on those smaller spring rolls. They were vegetarian. They also have a kids menu which was a bonus for us since we have a kid. Can you say– smaller portions of chinese OR chicken nuggets.
The average:
Pot stickers were «ah.» Not so good, not so horrible. We like ours steamed and they were but the dough was kinda think and, well, doughy.
The bad:
We ordered Spicy Chili Chicken. It looks GREAT. Chunks of chicken covered with sesame seeds and a virtual chili plant’s worth of peppers. After you dig out the chicken buried by chili’s, the chicken was VERY salty. Forget spicy, just SALTY. Like, grossly salty.
Overall:
It was emtpy when we walked in, like another reviewer said. Another family walked in later but that’s it and I should say we were there at 7pm on a Saturday night! Service was fine. Food wasn’t bad per se but I think maybe this place is hit or miss. Hit a good dish and you’re golden. Miss? It might suck.

When I first walked into this restaurant, I was a little hesitant because I was literally the only person there. The dining area is huge and a cheesy Chinese teenage-​love story was playing on an overhead tv.
I was pleasantly suprised by both the food and the service. My waitress was very hospitable and started talking with me about the intense heat that’s been in the Atlanta area for the past few days. I ordered the curry chicken, which was very spicy but good. My mom ordered the moo-​shoo chicken and liked it a lot, which is saying something because she is usually a very harsh judge about Chinese food. The beer/​wine selection was very limited, and the menu was a little limited as well.
All in all, this was a nice, affordable place to eat. The place does delivery, as well.