After Yumcha, their ambitious but short-lived new-Chinese restaurant, closed last year, Quentin Dante and Ten Vong moved just a couple of blocks for their next venture. Noodle Bar is a bright, casual spot serving a variety of quick Asian fare, at a long counter and two tables.

From their steam-shrouded posts in the open kitchen, the chefs, Mr. Vong and Maria Rodriguez, pack a lot of creativity into what is essentially simple cooking. The flavors are primarily Chinese, but influences from surrounding nations creep in from time to time. Noodles are of course a specialty; they feature in soups, cool salads, and hot wok preparations.

Among the best is a classic big bowl of superior broth, filled abundantly with thin noodles and hunks of skin-on roast duck ($10). It’s the same soup you can find throughout Chinatown and elsewhere, but in a particularly clean and flavorful version, with the duck deboned and a few sweet chestnuts tossed in for accent. Another similar preparation teems with rededged pork slices and fried wontons ($10), while “Bangkok bouillabaisse” ($9) offers squid rings and clams in a brilliant, piquant red soup.

Watching Mr. Vong stir-fry with precise exuberance is one of the joys of Noodle Bar, and reason enough to sit at the counter facing the kitchen rather than go the popular takeout route. From his superheated wok emerge such treats as garlicky rice ribbons ($11) topped with butterflied, coconut-breaded fried shrimp; and bee hoon goreng ($6), super-skinny Indonesian rice noodles crisped with a hint of black bean sauce.

Hunan Bolognese ($9) weds, rather successfully, Chinese and Italian ideas about noodles. On top of a swirl of soft, thick udon noodles, the tomato-based sauce trades the long-cooked savor of Italian bolognese for a keen quasi-Asian lightness. The sauce is accented with basil and lotus root, and built around long shreds of pork whose sweetness gives the dish a pleasingly unexpected dimension.

If the menu has a foible, it’s that too many of the many preparations are too similar: Bee hoon goreng could pass for lo mein ($10) in a pinch; shrimp pad thai ($9) and that spicy rice noodle are nigh indistinguishable, and the pork and duck soups are very close as well. Scallions, mung sprouts, fried shallots appear again and again. Some noodle restaurants solve this problem with a concoct-your-own-dish menu structure, making it the diner’s responsibility to put together exactly the noodle/meat/vegetable/broth combination he or she favors.

But the non-noodle dishes offer a fine dose of variety. The fried starters are all great, and light enough that a few of them could come together to form a delicious meal. Calamari rings ($8) wear a crisp batter that tingles with sichuan peppercorn; wasabi aioli adds its own brand of bite. A kimchi pancake ($4) with hoisin sauce is not the moist, eggy Korean variety, but a crisper, more Chinese cake studded with scallions. A clever variation on fish and chips ($9) features hunks of moist cod battered with Tsingtao beer, while shrimp chips fill in for the potato variety.

Those round, salty chips, made with ground shrimp and cassava flour and fried to a crunchy, foamy texture, accompany the restaurant’s two pressed sandwiches, too. The Asia de Cuban ($8) is a variant on porky Cuban sandwiches: Here it’s made with a canned meat billed as “China Spam” in addition to thin-sliced pork, Swiss cheese, and kimchi, all cooked between crusty bread in a panini press. It’s hearty and gooey, but lacks the mustardy zing of a great Cubano. The other, “Wanchai veggie” ($6), is that worn out vegetarian-alternative sandwich available on catering tables everywhere: roasted eggplant, roasted portabellos, mayonnaise. Noodle Bar holds the roasted red peppers and adds dryish tempeh, but that’s not enough to rescue the sandwich from its malaise.

Other highlights are dotted here and there throughout the menu. A Thai salad ($10) of crunchy mango and papaya threads stars long, tender strips of savory grilled steak, flattered by a tart dressing that’s almost pure lime juice, with a fairly potent Thai-chile bite. A cod filet ($12), simply steamed and drenched with salty miso black bean sauce, has marvelous pure flavor. A side of intense tasting little Manila clams in black bean sauce ($8) is excellent too.

Desserts come pre-made in takeout friendly little plastic cups. All are delicious and refreshing, but all are variations on a puddingy theme. There’s a gelatinous mango custard that’s only faintly sweet ($3); a rich five-spice “cheesecake” ($4) with no crust and little spoon-resistance, and a wonderfully mild soft tofu custard with sweet almond flavor.

Noodle Bar is yet another new restaurant with no liquor license, so savvy diners arrive carrying six-packs of dry beer. When it sticks to its starchy strength, it’s an appealing casual destination with a lot to offer.

Noodle Bar, 26 Carmine St., near Bleecker Street, 212-524-6800.