A restaurant in the Chinese city of Chongqing has just taken on a very unusual new recruit - a noodle-chopping robot.

Customers at Mr. Zhou's Noodle Restaurant were astonished on Monday to find the red and gold robot in pride of place in the restaurant window chopping noodles by the thousands.

"In Chongqing, this is a first," said Zhou. "The robot could save me fifty to sixty thousand yuan a year (10,000 US dollars)."

In 2006, restaurateur Cui Runquan, owner of a Beijing noodle bar, got sick of cutting his shop's handmade noodles down to size and developed the noodle-cutting robot which he made available to other restaurant owners to purchase online.

STORYLINE
A restaurant in the Chinese city of Chongqing has just taken on a very unusual new recruit - a noodle-chopping robot.

Customers at Mr Zhou's Noodle Restaurant were astonished on Monday to find the red and gold robot in pride of place in the restaurant window chopping noodles by the thousands.

"In Chongqing, this is a first," said Zhou. "The robot could save me fifty to sixty thousand yuan a year (10,000 US dollars)."

In 2006, restaurateur Cui Runquan, owner of a Beijing noodle bar, got sick of cutting his shop's handmade noodles down to size and developed the noodle-cutting robot which he made available to other restaurant owners to purchase online.


TRANSLATIONS
SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Zhou Hongyu, owner of the restaurant:
1.
"I have been running the restaurant for thirty years and this is the first time to use a robot. Labour cost is much too high these days so I decide to use machine instead. In Chongqing, this is a first. The robot can save me fifty to sixty thousand yuan a year."
2.
"You can control the size of noodles, large or small, and each piece is exactly the same weight."

3.
"This robot attracts a lot of people to take photos and they become our customers of course."


SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) no given name, a customer of the restaurant:
1.
"I like the taste of noodles as well as this creative and modern idea."
2.
"The noodles have good texture."
3.
"I think the owner loves our country because he uses a Japanese animation character to do physical work. (The Robot resembles Japanese character Ultraman)"