The key to this is in the next sentence below your quote (emphasis mine):


  This is identical to the sorcerer's ability to summon a familiar (PH 52), including all benefits granted and gained by the familiar, except as noted below. Her functional level for determining the abilities of the companion is equal to her druid level or one-half her ranger level.


Since the Urban Companion alternate class feature explicitly defines an equivalent arcane caster level for the purpose of obtaining a familiar through this ACF, the familiar tables' normal requirement for an arcane spellcaster level is satisfied by this; therefore, by RAW, characters with Urban Companion qualify for Improved Familiar, analogous to how cleric domains unlock feats for clerics, as they also already have the ability to obtain a familiar (via Urban Companion), and the alignment compatibility prerequisite is simply a restriction on which familiars you can have, not on the ability to take a familiar to begin with.

This text also implements the class-level reduction for Rangers, just like they get for normal animal companions.

Does Improved Familiar feat apply to Urban Companions?
I seem to recall reading somewhere that you should store leftover cooked rice noodles in water.  Is this right?  I don't want them to bloat and become ruined.

I also seem to recall reading somewhere you could revive stuck pasta by running it in (cold?) water.  

How should I store leftover cooked rice noodles to best preserve them for a day or two?

UPDATE: I tried storing them in cold water, and that's definitely not the way to go; the rice noodles bloated to about double their original thickness.  They taste fine, just not what I was looking to accomplish.
