Robot chef draws long queues at university in China

A noodles-making robot, decked in a chef's hat and a hygiene mask, has been introduced at a university in China to encourage students to eat at the canteen instead of going elsewhere.
The robot chef at the South China Agricultural University uses a swift slicing technique - reminiscent of the eponymous hero in the '90s US film Edward Scissorhands - to create knife-shaved noodles, news portal ThePaper.Cn reported yesterday.
It has been drawing big crowds and long queues at a university canteen in southern Guangdong province.
Knife-shaved noodles, known as "dao xiao mian" in Chinese, are a Shanxi speciality.
Traditionally, the noodles are made by slicing a large block of noodle dough at an angle with a meat cleaver and letting the sliced pieces fall directly into a boiling pot of soup.

The robot is armed with two sharp knives and can make up to 340 cuts a minute, the People's Daily, which carried a video of the machine in action reported.

The machine costs about 5,000 yuan (USD 725), Hong Kong- based South China Morning Post quoted the canteen manager, surnamed Dong as saying.
On its first day at work, the robot chef had already made 400 bowls of noodles, greatly improving efficiency, he said.
He added that it had been introduced in part to encourage the university's students to return to patronise the canteen's stalls instead of eating elsewhere.
On Tuesday, the canteen saw a snaking queue at its noodle stall as students came to try the robot chef's creation, the news website's report said.

"I've already been waiting for 20 minutes," a student, surnamed Chen, said, adding that he had never tried the dish at the canteen before, but was curious about how the robot's dish would taste.
Another student, Zhang, from Shanxi province, said as the noodles appeared very popular.
"I feel this is not simply a bowl of noodles. It feels very interesting and very heart warming," he said after trying the dish.
The robot chef also caused a stir online, with internet users questioning if its noodles tasted authentic.
"Some things cannot be replaced by a machine," one Weibo user wrote.

"It's not only the dao xiao mian, many food have this same principle," another said.
"Only food with feeling has a beautiful taste."
Others joked about the robot's appearance.
"I couldn't tell if this was a robot or an inflatable," one user wrote, the Post reported.
Robots caught the fascination of Chinese in recent years. A Chinese engineer also "married" a robot he created after failing to find a bride.