Noodle House

The noodle house is the flagship restaurant of Jumeirah Restaurants LLC. Launched in 2002, the brand has gone from strength to strength with 10 restaurants in the U.A.E., Oman and Qatar and expanding globally with agreements already signed with franchise partners across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. As well as the noodle house, Jumeirah Restaurants LLC also owns a number of other restaurants, including Sana Bonta, Bytes, AllFreshCo, Rice & Spice, and The Flaming Revolution with the aim to sign a total of 150 restaurants by 2012.

With long lines, dark wood, natural finishes and clean contours, the look of the noodle house is 100% contemporary. The woods used are mahogany, birch, hiroko and teak. Cool cream leather adorns the comfortable banquettes. Crockery is plain white, refreshingly simple, generously sized. Each place is set with a large cotton napkin. Places are also set with a choice of eastern and western cutlery. But while textural, natural materials like wood and leather abound in the dining area, the kitchen – which is fully open to view – features nothing but brilliant stainless steel.

People are drawn to the vibrant atmosphere of the noodle house. It is a restaurant where chefs whip up aromatic dishes within minutes over an open flame, in full view of guests. Seated at long communal tables amidst the hustle and bustle, talking to complete strangers is not uncommon. The experience is a unique combination of wholesome food and an energetic ambience that very few restaurants have been able to perfect quite like we have.

The restaurant is located on the third floor of Centria center, on the corner of Olaya and Tahliya St.

Tengu Instant Noodles

Designed by Rory Phillips, "The goal of this project was to create a brand and design it's identity and various deliverables to support the brand.

Instant noodles are super yummy, but they are also unhealthy because they are made with processed ingredients and fried. The idea was to market a brand of noodles that was made from organic whole grain and baked not fried, with high quality delicious gourmet flavors.

Tengu is a type of mischievous Japanese demon, in this case a fox. The fox in Japaneses mythology is the guardian spirit of Daikoku the god of the harvest and kitchen. Fox shrines are found all over japan and people leave treats for the fox spirits for good fortune. After a lot of research Tengu became the name and symbol for the brand. The food of Chef Chen Kenichi was the inspiration for the different flavors of the noodles.

In order to differentiate the healthy delicious Tengu noodles from the processed junk noodles, the packaging is of a longer rectangular shape instead of the usual square. This was meant to evoke the idea of fine gourmet pastas.

The packaging was designed to be made from unbleached recycled materials to remind the consumer of the unprocessed nature of the product and to avoid the bright and cheap mass produced look of the junk brands. The message is this is a premium handcrafted item.

The 'obi' or sash around the packaging designates the flavor this allows the company to easily add new seasonal flavors without changing and printing entirely new packages. The inside of the 'obi' has more information on the brand message; Tengu makes traditional Healthy, Delicious and Sustainable noodles everyone can enjoy."

Nissin Ufo Noodles website

Nissin Ufo Noodles

It's also interesting to see such an unusual artistic approach to food marketing. No fancy perfect pictures of the food, but rather a colorful chaotic browsing through illustrations and animations.

Maybe because the only way to make instant yakisoba noodles appealing is to avoid showing the product and rather focus on the aesthetics of the digital experience :-)

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