At Stellar, Ashok Hotel, you can try out as many as 10 varieties of noodles in dishes from all across the world. Shrabasti Mallik tastes the fare at the Noodle Festival
There are perhaps no better takers of noodles than hostel boarders. From midnight binge eating to low budget celebrations — noodles are their permanent company. So for them, and for all noodle lovers, Stellar at Ashok Hotel has curated a special Noodle Festival.
Starting from May 15, till June 30, patrons will be able to relish several varieties of the much-loved delicacy from places all over the world like Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and a few more.
Our love for noodles took us there and we were pleasantly surprised to find that not only can it be used as a full main course meal but can also be used as one of the main ingredients in courses like soups and salads, too.
Needless to say that few of the soups we tried were truly Asian — boiled and a tad bland. We tried the Asian style broccoli and pokchoy wheat noodle soup (also in a non-veg variant of chicken balls instead of broccoli), Chinese style chicken and black mushroom yaki udon noodle soup and Singapore style fish ball and pokchoy egg noodle soup. Although the broth was clear and spiceless, the Asian style broccoli broth was quite spicy because of chopped dried chillies. The noodles, on the other hand, were very finely boiled and tossed with vegetables.
Noodle salad we have had before but never have we come across such a wide variety. From cold salads to Chinese and from Asian to Thai style, chef Rajen Pradhan has incorporated quite a few delectable options to choose from. He had us taste a few of them and trust us, he had more than compensated for the non-spicy food.
The Chinese crispy hakka noodle salad that we tried not only had us reaching out for water and tissues but left our tongues burning. But even then we could not help but treat ourselves to a few more spoons of the dish. The Asian zucchini yaki udon noodles and the cold Asian yaki udon noodles with peanut, sesame, and chicken were low on spice and quite delicious. But the Thai style glass noodle salad with vegetables (and chicken for non-vegetarians), again, was quite hot but we liked the subtle flavour of the kafir lime.
We, however, did not like the taste of the yakisoba Japanese noodle with tuna and salmon, perhaps because it did not blend well or it was unfamiliar to our taste.
Curating a noodle festival was chef Pradhan’s idea. “You get noodles everywhere and it is nothing short of comfort food. So I decided to give the city its first noodle festival by bringing together the best of noodle dishes from all over the world and have tried to stick to the real recipes,” said the chef who has used 11 varieties of noodles in the entire menu like pasta noodle, yakisoba noodles, glass noodles, egg noodles, rice vermicelli noodles, Japanese noodles, wheat noodles, yaki udon noodles, hakka noodles, rice stick noodles and wheat noodles.
There was a whopping 25 noodle preparations in the main course itself. You will be literally spoilt for choice here. But we suggest that you try their crunchy fried noodle with roasted duck and the bakmi goreng noodle with chicken and prawn. The Thai basil noodles was also a delight.
What we liked the most about the menu was that every noodle dish had options for both veg and non-veg patrons. Having to choose from so many options might be tough but too many noodles can also become monotonous.
But we have to credit the chef for broadening our knowledge about noodles, its uses and the uncountable ways in which it is prepared.