"noodles" news and stories

• Say farewell to The Minimalist (but not to Mark Bittman!).
• There's an endless variety of noodles in China -- and they're increasingly available in New York. (Think: way beyond lo mein.)
• You might go there for the scene, but the food at John Dory Oyster Bar is "incredibly good."
• This week in wine: Everything's coming up rosés. (Really?)
• The ham bone's connected to the soup bone in this hearty winter recipe.

Happy National Noodle Day!

In the categorical blanket of all things pasta, one might guess the main difference between noodles and, say, macaroni is shape -- but one would be mistaken to assume such. Although all pastas use a base of water and flour, noodles by definition must also contain eggs or egg yolks.

According to our Slashfood Flickr, pool, the vast majority of your "noodle" submissions are of Asian varieties. Here are our favorites:

• Korean glass noodle salad
• Sesame-marinated steak with spinach and soba noodles
• Ginger-scallion noodles
• Spicy peanut noodle salad
• Sichuan-style chicken noodle soup
• Spicy shrimp with soba noodles

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Stop! Before you pour a bag of noodles into your carefully crafted soup, read on!

For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. The boxes can range from austere lacquered trays to multi-tiered Hello Kitty confections of neon pink plastic. The meals themselves are anything from rice and leftovers to elaborate themed affairs of Pikachu-shaped dumplings with sesame seed eyes and carved radish trees. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.

Check out Aylanah's family dinner bentos. Nests of beef ramen sit in cupcake liners (a good trick for portioning any food into individual servings) dressed up with a mint leaf and accompanied by a little forest of blackberries, strawberries, cut sugar snap peas and kumquats.

Source

Tofu noodles, a slimy, putty-pale item that might ordinarily be relegated to the back of the ethnic food shelf in American grocery stores, are experiencing a surge in popularity. Why? The 40-calories-a-bag noodles have been endorsed by Hungry Girl, a website dedicated to the kind of food substitutions that recall the bad old days of Slim-Fast, Snackwells, and other highly altered dietetic food stuffs. Her endorsement has made the once-obscure noodles a hot ticket item in stores like Whole Foods and Gristede's.

Hungry Girl suggests eating Tofu Shirataki noodles with low-fat cheese as a sort of (very) faux fettuccine Alfredo. I dunno - anything labeled "lite" or "low-fat" reminds me too much of my mid-90s girlhood of eating neon-colored sugar-free yogurt for breakfast and tofu bologna slices for lunch.