JEDDAH: Noodles, the flagship Chinese restaurant at Jeddah’s Rosewood Corniche, is offering special dishes throughout May and June. Noodles’ chefs will present “A Taste of Sichuan” in May to introduce diners to the bold flavors of southwestern China — a mix of hot, sour, sweet and salty dishes using garlic, chili peppers and local peppercorn. This will be followed by a shrimp promotion in June. On offer will be large jumbo shrimps flash cooked to perfection and tossed in a delicate oyster sauce, served at the table in a sizzling pan and accompanied with fresh Chinese salad.
 

DOHA: Qatar Airways is celebrating the launch of scheduled services to Ankara following the arrival of its inaugural flight from Doha to the Turkish capital last week. By adding four-non-stop services a week between Doha and Ankara, the new route strengthens the airline’s operations in Turkey, where it already operates daily flights to Istanbul. Qatar Airways is the only Gulf carrier flying to Ankara, operating an Airbus A320 with 12 seats in Business Class and 132 in Economy, the airline said. Ankara becomes the award-winning airline’s 88th destination and third new route of 2010. Over the past few weeks, the airline launched scheduled flights from Doha to both Bangalore and Copenhagen.
 

BAHRAIN: Gulf Air has introduced its dedicated Business-to-Business (B2B) Internet booking tool for its corporate passengers and travel agents. The new service offers Gulf Air’s corporate customers, i.e., small to medium sized enterprises as well as travel agents, the facility to book directly with Gulf Air, from their own offices. With the new service, corporate travelers can check availability of flights in real-time and select the flight they want and book seats instantly. They can also pick and choose a seat of their choice from the seat map available online. The B2B tool is built on the same secure platform and very easy-to-use interface at gulfair.com.
 

JEDDAH: Sudan has been added as nas air’s new destination to its expanding network. Flights depart Jeddah for Khartoum every Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday and they return from Khartoum on the same days, with one-way fare starting from SR199 excluding taxes. “We will be operating Airbus A320 on this route with a capacity of 180 seats and baggage allowance of 30+7 KG per passenger,” Jamal Siddiqui, key account manager of National Air Services (nas) Group for the Western Province, said.