Noodles, Cinnamon Grand’s newest restaurant venture was launched a few days back and features an extensive menu comprising of noodle-based Asian cuisines and a variety of rice dishes. Inspired by popular favourite dishes from Vietnam, Japan, China, Thailand and Malaysia, the menu features over 70 types of dishes, including starters, salads, soups, mains (noodles and rice), accompaniments and desserts.

Chef Tran Ba Giang

To kick things off, we were served Salt and Pepper Calamari which by far is the most delicious and mouthwatering preparation of calamari I’ve ever tasted. The calamari is deep-fried and tossed in salt, pepper and garlic and served with a sweet chillie sauce. It’s rather crunchy and moderately spicy, and the flavours despite being really simple, are excellent and make for a great appetizer. Make sure that if you do order this dish as a starter, you don’t gorge on it alone else you’ll miss out on the other amazing dishes on the menu.

Another appetizer that was a clear winner on its own was the Crispy Lobster Ravioli, which is lobster wrapped in ravioli skin and deep-fried and then served with a coconut sauce. The ravioli was crisp, fried to a light brown and biting into it, you’ll find soft lobster meat encased in the ravioli. This can be eaten alone or even with the sauce which brings out its flavour better. Other appetizers include crab cakes, Vietnamese rice paper rolls, chicken yakitori, beef rolls, cold tofu and tempura prawns among several others.

Skipping the salads, we moved onto the soups and I chose the Prawn and Yasai Itame with Rice Noodles, a delectable dish much like laksa but not as thick and heavy. The soup features rice noodles, steamed prawns, green beans and spinach cooked in a light coconut milk and lemongrass broth, beautifully executed flavours in a light soup - perfect and invigorating! Moving onto the mains shortly after, I opted for the Vietnamese Sautéed Glass Noodles with Crab Meat, a delectable and recommended noodle dish featuring sautéed glass noodles with crab meat, carrots, egg, black fungus, bean sprouts and bok choy. Not too spicy, the noodles were just right in terms of flavour and each bite proved to be rather tasty.

On the verge of being unable to breathe because I was stuffed, it didn’t seem like much of a choice to turn down dessert. Notable desserts are the Molten Dark Chocolate Lava Cake topped with a thick strawberry sauce and accompanied by caramel ice cream, Lime Tart - a thick slice of butter flour cake made with lime, eggs and sugar and the Green Tea Ice Cream with Pistachio, while the other desserts seem plenty promising and range from anise poached pear in warm sake and chocolate ice cream to pandan cheesecake, banana fritters with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream, and mixed fruit and sago cooked in coconut milk. Choosing the Green Tea Ice Cream with Pistachio proved to be a good choice owing to the cooling flavour of the ice cream - soft, smooth and creamy with subtle hints of the matcha green tea flavour. Biting into the sticky pistachio sticks was nice, and especially when paired with a spoonful of the ice cream.

The noodle-based dishes at Noodles are made from ten types of noodles which are Chinese egg noodles, rice vermicelli, udon, ramen, soba, vegetable noodles, sweet potato noodles, egg noodles, fresh rice noodles and samba noodles. Noodles is at the Courtyard Restaurant (Courtyard by day, and Noodles by evening) and is open everyday from 6.30PM-11.30PM. it’s advisable to make a reservation on 0112497361/62.

Noodles team

By Sarah Kellapatha
Photos courtesy Noodles, Cinnamon Grand