1010 20th St. NW (202) 293-3138 Hours of Operation and Prices Lunch: M-F 11:30-3 Dinner: M-Sat 5-10 Entrees: $6-$8 Closed: Sun Other Information • Credit Cards: All major • Reservations: Recommended for 6 or more • Dress: Casual • Nearest Metro: Dupont Circle, Farragut North • Handicapped accessible • Oodles Noodles also has a branch at 4907 Cordell Ave., Bethesda, Md. (301) 986-8833

At the Bethesda branch, with more tables and dishes, appetizers tend to be highlights, and satays may be the best in town. Dough-based appetizers are even more scrumptious: savory pancakes with a well-seasoned meat filling or meaty Japanese dumplings. Spring onion cake is like a pancake, crisp-edged and pleasantly starchy, its dip sweet and fiery. The butterfly shrimp appetizer is the lone disappointment.

I'd be tempted, however, to have soup for both first and second courses. Thai chicken-coconut soup is outstanding, as in an entree of grilled chicken noodle soup. Some Bethesda entrees, though, seem tamed for American tastes. I prefer downtown for such adventurous entrees as Hokkien shrimp noodle soup, Penang asam laksa or grilled eel. At either branch, you can expect Thai drunken noodles to be irresistibly fragrant with basil and peppers and Indonesian nasi campur to be a small banquet of tangy, sweet-hot glazed shrimp, subtly curried slices of chicken breast, crunchy whole peanuts, crisp little salted fish, diced cucumbers and half a boiled egg around a mound of rice.

Choose your noodles - soft fat Japanese udon, thin wiry ramen, firm golden egg, fragile filaments of rice vermicelli or wide stark-white rice noodles like the Chinese chow fun. And pick your style - mild or spicy; dry, saucy or soupy; Malaysian, Indonesian, Japanese, Thai or Chinese. Oodles Noodles offers a lot of adventure for under $8.