Still living at home. My mom and I collaborated on a noodle-soup-with-toppings dish, similar in spirit to a ramen or udon composition, which is Ben's and my favorite food format. Beware of having something like this out at a restaurant, where you may encounter a wussy broth and a dearth of toppings. What you are looking for is a very hearty broth with something other than cabbage or broccoli floating around with the noodles.
Here, we have a gingery clear broth made with ginger, carrots, and scallions. We steamed some baby bok choy, quartered or eighthed, and I used the shiitake poaching technique featured in the nabeyaki udon installment in cooking with dog.
Shrimp dumplings were made by food-processing some raw shrimps with herbs and a little corn starch. Dumpling balls were formed and dropped into boiling broth. As the dumplings finished cooking, I dropped some already softened rice noodles in there. Soup then ladeled out and and topped.
