The kungfu noodles

When a place calls itself Noodle Loft, I just can't look away. I love noodles. I love it so much that I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that I have at least a serving of it a day. It can come in any form. Instant, thick, flat, Chinese, Korean, soba, udon, spaghetti, it has all found loving in my tummy. As long as it is part of the stringy family, count me in. If noodles is a banned drug, I will be Michael Phelps. Anyway, you get the point.

During the Chinese New Year break, Noodle Loft was one of the few restaurants that remained opened and so it seemed as good a time to pay it a visit. But first impression, which is very important for a restaurant, didn't go down that well.


This elegantly-named eatery was housed in its own building and yet, the entrance was run down, with two odd gigantic pots of plants and a few bicycles. Not very elegant at all. Inside, it felt like a concept gone wrong. The owner obviously wanted the place to be "cool" and like some cock Singapore civil servants, that equates to officially-sanctioned graffiti (remember the Youth Park at Somerset in Singapore?). Ugly graffiti filled a wall in the restaurant, looking as out of place and manufactured as Pamela Anderson's third boob if she ever had one.


But at least the centrepiece of Noodle Loft (10-6774-9950) got it right. It was an open kitchen, with the noodle chefs doing as much as they can to make sure you looked at them. It was hard not to anyway because the graffiti was hideous and the cooks made hell a lot of noise by slapping the dough really hard on the counter.

The marquee act from the chefs' performances was the Loft's specialty: The One Chopstick Noodle, so named because there is really just one strand of noodle for your entire bowl, measuring 5m long. The chef somehow managed to keep stringing the noodle along, flying the green noodle (because of the spinach juice) like a real kungfu master into a big pot. If there is a Cirque Du Soleil act on noodle making, this dude will be a real crowd pleaser in the big tent.


While I did not try the One Chopstick Noodle (I don't like the colour green), I did give other kungfu-styled noodles a bite, including the Scissors Cut Noodles, the Knife Sliced Noodles (12 yuan each) and one which would give PETA a fright - Buckwheat Pasta in Shape of Cat's Ears (see below). I am not partial to the meow meow creature in any way, but rest assured that no animals were hurt in the production of my meals.


I did not like my pussy-shaped pasta, because it was too chunky and doughy and did not allow the spicy sauce to get into the, erm, cat ears. You get to choose a variety of sauces (spicy beef, tomato etc) which is then served to you in a small bowl to be mixed with very naked looking noodles.


The Scissors Cut Noodles were delicious though. The Chinese in the north tend to like their noodles thicker than those I am used to back home, but this Scissors Noodles were just of the right thickness and texture, blending perfectly with the spicy beef sauce that I chose for it.

There are plenty of other options on the menu, most of which are non-noodles dishes, which I didn't bother to try much (the stir-fried vegetables were ordinary). I did say I went there for the noodles, didn't I? For a place named Noodles Loft, it is strange that noodles are tucked all the way at the back of a thick menu, and occuping just two pages. Bring your friends here for the exquisite kungfu noodle-making performance. In terms of food and environs, well, not exactly Shaolin standards.