Frankly I don't see much difference. For me pasta is about the sauce. Bad sauce will spoil the best of fresh noodles while really good sauce will turn dry noodles into a real delicacy.

Texture is more important, in my opinion, to how it tastes with the sauce. Smooth or rough happens with either kind of noodles, and different sauces want different textures.

I can probably count the number of times I've eaten ramen. If my memory serves, it's fairly smooth, but not totally smooth like soba or udon, or even more totally smooth like glass noodles. Having so much less experience with ramen, however, I don't know if that's the norm. My favorite spaghetti is DeBoles whole wheat with Jerusalem artichoke
flour because it has a rough texture that holds sauce or broth really
well.

With broth, I think the slurpability and ratio of noodle to broth in your spoon are really important. I've had dishes with glass noodles where they slide out of the spoon leaving mostly broth behind, and then were a big pile of wet noodles to eat at the end. I don't know if that's the way it's supposed to go or if I'm just bad at eating noodles, but I like it better when you get both. My old auntie made hand cut egg noodles that were jagged and different sizes -- kind of looked like the eggs in egg in egg drop soup though with more chew -- and they were great for just the right balance between broth and noodle in one's spoon. I like udon, too, though, where it's more noodles than broth.

Then there are radiatori. The sauciest small pasta I know. All the ridges hold lots of flavor.

My aunt always made fresh pasta, and my dad always laughed at her making so much work for herself. It IS about the sauce, and my dad's was better. My cousins even preferred my dad's, and that drove my aunt a little nuts. She could never believe her kids would eat spaghetti and meatballs at our house, but wouldn't at home.

It's horses for courses. Dry pasta is flour and water. Fresh is flour and eggs.

I always thought that fresh was better with creamy sauces, and dried with oil-based.

Islay, you may be right there. I never make creamy sauces. Always oil based.

My favourite is just a couple garlic cloves and hot pepper flakes gently fried in olive oil till the garlic is fragrant & golden. Some chopped parsley is nice with it but not realy necessary.

Sometimes when I'm too tired or just lazy, I just place a little lump of butter on the hot pasta, mix to melt the butter and sprinkle some salt. It's so good! Come to think of it, this actually is a version of bread and butter.

The Italians I have known said that pasta dishes are about the pasta, and the sauce is secondary. I make fresh pasta frequently, now that I have a pasta attachment for my KA mixer. I used to make the dough in the FP, but I have found that it is just as easy to make a small amount (2 -4 servings) in a bowl, and the clean-up is so much easier that it is faster to make it in a bowl. I made lasagna last week-end and spinach fettuccine last week. For lasagna, I make pasta with two eggs, 1/3 cup semolina, 2/3 cup white flour, and 1/4 tsp salt, to start, and knead in more flour as needed. I never add oil to my pasta dough because that makes it too stretchy. I do have to hand crank my old pasta machine to cut the fettuccine, as I have not found it necessary to get the KA attachment for that.

I have buckwheat flour in my freezer that I use occasionally to make Japanese soba noodles, but I'm less keen on those. When I make ramen soup (which is also frequently), I often add a few balls of rice noodles, for different texture.

Dried pasta can have egg in it, especially the wide Dutch egg noodles that I like to use in soup. I have never used fresh pasta in soup, unless you count the udon noodles that I buy at a Japanese market. They are not that fresh (although not dried) because they have sat on a shelf for a few days. I prefer the texture of dried noodles in soup, but I prefer the texture of fresh noodles when the dish is mostly pasta. If you have good pasta, most Italian will be shocked to see you smother it with sauce. Most of the dried pasta that I use is in a shell shape or corkscrew shape, and I use the latter for salads. I keep orzo on hand to make quick adjustments to recipes.

Yes, but part of "about the pasta" is the texture with which it conveys the sauce, or not. :) Mostly, though, for me, the "about the pasta, is about the flour it's made out of.

Really good dried pasta is really good. Cheap crap dried pasta gets waterlogged and gummy. Really good fresh pasta is really good. Cheap crap fresh pasta is gummy and slimy.

But Asian noodles, like John's ersatz ramen (broth with thin wheat noodles) made with fresh yakisoba (pan fried buckwheat noodles) are a different story. I haven't met poor quality Japanese noodles, though I'm sure there must be some. In general, I think food quality has much higher status in Japanese culture than in ours.

John, how do you think the yakisoba did on absorbing the broth flavor?

Having thought more about your question, I do know that dry pasta absorbs a lot of flavor (and color) from broth just because my mother used to make "plain" pasta for us that way, when we were little, and it tasted exactly like her rice made with the same kind of broth. :) What I'm not sure of is whether it makes a big difference while you're eating the noodles and broth together, if more of the broth has gotten into the noodles. Or what happens when you cook the noodles in the broth, drain them, then serve them with fresh broth. Does that intensify the flavor?

The yakisoba noodles didn't absorb much flavor from the broth.

I like cooking rice in broth, that really absorbs flavor. But I haven't gotten noodles to do so, to any similar degree.

Maybe the noodles need to be made with very concentrated broth instead of water. Kind of like black noodles made with squid ink.

I bought a bag of frozen, cut up "stewing chicken" and a bag of beef neck bones from the Asian grocery, and made the broth in the pressure cooker, with ginger, garlic, onions, celery, carrots, soy sauce, worchestershire sauce. Bought some prepared char sui BBQ pork, sliced and fried it. Also seared some frozen scallops, sauteed diced bok choy, etc. Made for a simple but tasty and very easy dinner. I haven't been doing much cooking, mostly one pot meals, spaghetti, random stuff. Sort of comfort food.

Palm to forehead. I work all over NYC, all five boroughs. I can't help but bring home many varieties of fresh and dried noodles to try from various markets.

So, palm to forehead when i want to try them. Usually the noodle determines the dish. Sometimes i just try a bit before committing to something. See how they cook in one of my small sauce pans. Like any new grain or rice, i want to taste a bit quickly just in a bit of water for timing and raw flavor. Test a bit while i'm chopping the chosen veg...I do get a bit loyal to a favorite brand when it does what i like.

I've had different brands of the same style noodle have such different outcomes.

To answer your question, we almost always prefer a dry one for flavor absorbing. Just a bit frustrating when a dry noodle goes too soft so quickly.

Or worse, a dry noodle with directions to just soak in warm water and is firm, almost hard, or another hits the hot broth and disintegrates to nothingness without shape at all.

A good method we use often is to take some of the broth in that separate small stock pot and make our noodles on the side to add when plating. If the noodles fail, we still have that lovely ginger, miso, veg, etc broth or whatever we have made that is lovely and familiar....then pull out another noodle...to try again. (just takes a few minutes to correct the fail)