With International Noodle Day (6 October) coming up, we held a cooking competition among our staff to challenge their creativity using instant noodles! It was just for fun... but some took it pretty seriously. Here's how it went down...
Many of us hold a special place in our hearts for noodles - in particular the instant noodle aka ramen, instant ramen, two-minute noodles.
Everyone seems to have a childhood memory involving these convenient, quick, cheap and easy noodles which can be cooked in a variety of ways.
In the lead up to International Noodle Day (6 October), we wanted to do something fun at Bodhi with our staff, to bring some light and laughter to what has been a very difficult six months for all of us.
So we decided to stage a cooking competition. The task? Create the best version of an instant noodle dish. The prize? The winner takes home a custom-designed Noodle Champion Cup with the title of Noodle King or Queen, plus cash prizes and a month’s worth of supply of instant noodles.
We dubbed the competition Ramengeddon!
Drawing on flavours from their homelands all over the world, staff battled it out for the coveted title, with three guest judges deciding the winner, including Head Chefs Brooke Ng and Kitty Hong Xiao, and Owner Heaven Leigh.
First dish of the competition came from Yum Cha Chef Allan, who whipped up san choy bau with fried noodles. 👇
Next up was Restaurant Manager Mark, cooking his noodles in shiitake mushroom and miso broth, with pan fry teriyaki tofu, fresh cucumber and seaweed, plus his secret ingredient of tomatoes oven roasted in chilli oil. 👇
He was followed by Chef Wenvile who made an Indonesian-style stir fry noodle dish decorated with his creative vegetable art. 👇
Then Chef Tony was up with a chilled noodle and spicy salad, with a two-hour broth with a secret ingredient of pears! 👇
Next was Head Waiter Miguel with his Mexican-inspired three chilli ramen, with enoki mushrooms, coconut cream, and Mexican spices. 👇
Yum Cha Waitress Rachana made a Nepali-inspired noodle dish with a vegan omelet made from chickpeas, coriander powder, cumin and tofu. 👇
And finally, Waitress Deepika delivered up her mother’s stir fry noodle recipe. 👇
The judges found it incredibly hard to pick a winner as all the dishes were so delicious! But they eventually agreed on Chef Tony as the frontrunner, for his impressive chilled noodle and spicy salad.
So you can recreate his instant noodle dish, Chef Tony has kindly shared all the details with us, including the secret ingredient - see recipe here.
Will we do a follow up competition next year? Maybe we will... stay tuned!
