Style is evident in every facet of the Oriental Pearl restaurant; the decor, service, and its way of celebrating its noodle festival; with a complimentary champagne cocktail to go with every dish of noodles! And what a vast variety of noodle preparations are on offer here! Japanese, Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian and, of course, Chinese noodles. The purpose behind holding this festival, in the words of Vikram Kotah, Manager of the Hotel, is 'to popularise noodles in Chennai and to give our diners an idea of how many types and preparations of noodles there are'. A lot of thought has gone into the selection of dishes for the festival menu. Almost every one of the sixteen dishes is a common and popular preparation in its region of origin, so this festival does literally give the noodle-lover a taste of what's cooking in most other parts of the orient.

Noodles are normally bought locally, or made in the restaurant's kitchen, but the Japanese glass noodles and rice noodles are both extremely difficult to make, and so have been imported especially for the festival. The transparent glass noodles appear in the dish Noodles Exotica, cooked with seafood, and, in the Japanese way, non-spicy. The Thai dish Pad Thai, however, does not spare the chilly. This dish contains noodles fried with chicken, prawn, bean curd, bean sprout, and flavoured with roasted crushed peanut. A mildly spicy dish is the Malaysian flat-noodle preparation Kon Siu Kaai Kway Teow, with stir fried chicken. The most popular dishes are Seafood Noodle, pan fried noodles with prawn, fish and squid; and Double Fried Noodle, crisp-fried noodles with vegetables, chicken and soya sauce. There is also the well-known American Chopsuey, available with or without meat. There are two noodles-in-soup dishes that use thick Japanese noodles; Kake Udon, with vegetables and Yaki Udon with seafood. The Singapore Crab Noodle is a dry, spicy dish created by the Chef, and thus, the sole indigenously-designed dish.

Each dish is self-sufficing and makes a complete meal for one person. Prices range from Rs.95 for a vegetable noodle dish, up to Rs.140 for a meat noodle dish. A complimentary festival starter is provided - Kimchi, Korean pickled cabbage - and other starters and desserts can be ordered from the regular restaurant menu. There is also the jasmine-scented Japanese tea, chopsticks for those who know how to use them and for those inclined to learn how and, as a final touch, piped Oriental music. 'Oodles of Noodles' opened on 16 June, and has already been fairly well received. This writer would be very glad to see it become a regular - perhaps annual - feature of Chennai's food festival calendar.

The Oriental Pearl restaurant is in Hotel GRT Grand Days, 120 Sir Thyagaraja Road, Pondy Bazaar, T. Nagar. Phone: 822-0500. 

Arun Masilamoni