I was on the red eye flight from the beautiful city of Sacramento to the booming metropolis of New York, formerly New Amsterdam. My quest? Principally, to save every single wild cat on Earth (easy). The second? Sample the world's most delicious soups in this Xanadu of Zuppe (that's Italian — something I picked up in New York). Yes, I was coming to try the world's best soups in every nook and cranny of the Big Apple. But I was not prepared for what I would encounter — and the sojourn my trip would take me on.
As I write this, I sit on a green couch the exact color of split pea soup, thinking of the reeI I watched today that reminded me of that city of New York that I visited a month ago. The speaker was Mayor Eric Adams, a politician of great reknown. In 2021, he defeated opponent Curtis Silwa in one of the most frothing hot mayoral races any New Yorker sipping his stew in a bodega could ever remember. Since then, he has been known to make the odd statement, from harping on his habit of buying streetside fruit to taking a stand for female pleasure.
But today, he made a statement that hearkened back to my soup experience. An interviewer asked the great mayor what his city meant to him — in one word. This boundary-pushing statesman replied with "New York". Already, I found this quite the compelling answer. But then he replied that it was a great city because — on one hand — "you could see a plane crash into the World Trade Center"— and, on the other hand — "you could see someone start a small business."
I was fascinated by this statement. Not because I am a conspiracy theorist (though I think gazpacho is psy-op to make us accept the days when we no longer have access to hot water), no, because my experience was quite like this statement. The regal statesman was correct. I too witnessed a plane crash into the World Trade Center and a happy event like a business being started, from the perspective of soup, at least.
My journey began with the usual complaints of a soup connoisseur. I took a blue jet as a "red-eye" flight to my job where I shall save every tiger, lion, and fishing cat in existence. However, I quickly learned that red-eye means that there is no in-flight meal, which includes soup. I thought to argue that soup is not always a meal, but I thought not to, lest the flight attendants turn away in indignation. I did not want the pilot of this vehicle to call me to the cockpit to discuss the merits of broth. No, while everyone slept all around me, I could not rest, stewing in discontent.
Then, I landed. Oh, that beautiful city! I heard the songs of Frank Sinatra, my personal hero, ring in my head. I relate to him because 17 was also a very good year for me because that was the year that I tried my first mulligatawny. But I digress. Start spreading the news, soup chefs everywhere needed to beware. This connoisseur had come to taste this city's liquid concoctions.
I entered a taxi cab and went to my work. I saved the cats. I then retired to my hotel after a long night of not being able to think about anything but soup. My body was ready to rest. For I was about to encounter a soup. That needed a full afternoon's nap.
At 7 o'clock, I was greeted by my father and a friend who claims his favorite soup is kare-kare. We ventured upon the F train in the New York subway to the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Many know that this is a significant location for me. It is where my ancestors crossed that great broth of the Atlantic Ocean to reach this great "melting pot" (the only well-named American cliche). Yes, into this swirling fondue they ventured, settling south of Houston Street. They lived in tenements, eating nothing but moldy bread and picke brine. This was before the days of Campbell's Chunky soups and even Lipton's chicken noodle packets. These people struggled to give me a better life. I had to repay them. I suppose there is no greater honor than to eat soup where they stood.
The object of our journey was Katz's Delicatessen. While it is a tourist trap, Katz's has quite delectable food. And I am not afraid to say as a soup connoisseur that not all of it is liquid. The eatery contains luscious latkes, fried perfectly to complement a cabbage soup. One could also try the deli's signature dish, the pastrami, which hails from a Turkish word but does not in any way resemble the disgusting broths, sauces, and vile soups of that proud and beautiful nation. The pastrami melts in one's mouth as if it is liquid, and when combined with Russian dressing, the mixture of Turk and Russian meld perfectly like the antithesis of the Crimean War.
I was seated in a back room, perhaps because they knew I was a soup connoisseur. On the menu I saw an incredible deal — a soup and sandwich combination, much more economically sound than the full pastrami sandwich. In this place where my ancestors first learned to haggle, I quickly decided on the most fiscally responsible option. Call me the Shylock of soup.
The soup and sandwich came. An important note to my dedicated readers: I honor you and your unwavering trust in me by not reviewing a non-soup item. Therefore I say that my review of the pastrami is null. However, I did get to experience half a bowl of matzo ball soup. And what an experience it was. Chicken stock seeped through to my tongue. The ball of matzo and egg was rich and flavorful. The texture made me feel my haggle was worth it. What viscosity! A most solid soup.
After this incredible experience, I left this Mecca of matzo ball to seek soup elsewhere. But that night, something happened that changed me profoundly, something dark and sinister.
A rat crossed my path. Many speak of the large rats of the Empire State. In my short time as its resident, one or two crossed me, posing little threat. Why should I care about a simple rat? No one puts them in soup. I hope not. But now, a rat disturbed me. From my right side, it scampered near inches in front of my feet, startling me and my kare-kare-loving friend. So, I and my Filipino food fanatic friend bolted, clutching each other as the rat laughed behind us. A harrowing experience, and a sign of the bad broth which was yet to come.
That night, this soup connoisseur could not sleep. Like a chicken tortilla soup, my mood quickly soured. I once again experienced that non-food-related emotion known as depression. My mind wandered. Was I special?
Special. What a silly word. Whenever this soup-focused mind hears that wrd, it immediately thinks of a special on a menu. I long for the day I see that a chef has added a new twist on french onion or lobster bisque. But this special was not of the food variety. No, it was of a much darker, beef broth colored tone. I evaluated my very identity.
I had no purpose. Many of you may say, soup reviewer, what do you mean, you have no prupose, you review soups and bring us closer to enlightenment through it?! Yes, that may be how it seems. But I am a simple soup man, and take no joy from my endeavors. You see, this blog is the burden I must bear. It is my penance for the knowledge of broth bestowed to me. But I find no satisfaction in it.
I tossed and turned. What was I doing with my life? My heart felt like a slotted spoon. The long years poured out of it. A graduate school reject (and not for the culinary arts). A nuisance to many friends, who must view me with contempt and annoyance. Much of the same. My heart simmered with sadness. I did not feel special.
I see so many around me who feel others are special. They always have someone to share a soup with. Or they can call on a trusted companion to conduct hot pot with without any drama. But myself? I felt not that way. I was nothing, a connoisseur, but a person of others contempt, worthy of dismissal and animosity. I do not have an alphabet soup nearby to help me, but I believe what I felt that I was worthy of ostracization. I was an utter failure of a human being, culinary genius I may be. No one would ever think I was truly special, neither interpersonally nor romantically. Not the way I thought of a french onion soup on a cold winter's day at the perfect temperature of 46 degrees Fahrenheit (7.78 degrees Celsius and 280.93 Kelvins), at least.
But as famed actor John Travolta famously said in a movie dressed as notorious Italian gangster John Gotti, this was "New York City, greatest fucking city in the world!" Perhaps I would find the secret to unlocking specialty in this wondrous metropolis the greatest the world had ever seen. I could search the five boroughs — which that movie taught me were Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Manhattan, and the Bronx ("that form a fist") — for this nirvana. I formed my own fist — a fist of resolve — a fist of food, a fist of soup solidarity.
But I was to find no joy in my quest. The first place I was to try a soup was a Thai restaurant in Midtown. My boss was to pay for this meal, so how could it go wrong? I would not even have to haggle. At my own suggestion, my coworkers and I sauntered over to this culinary establishment. And my dark beef broth heart sank even further.
I ordered the tom kha gai, a soup I have ordered before and quite like whenever I attend a Siamese establishment. I enjoy its coconut flavor, its spicy residue, its lime flair. I ordered the soup, and added chicken to my request. But all was lost when it was brought to me.
Atop an ornate pot did my soup sit. A gilded bowl to eat this liquid fallacy, a poisoned chalice fit for only a soup reviewer. My heart sank when I saw what was underneath — an artificial heater, keeping a flame ablaze to warm the soup.
What is the problem, you ask? Why must you decry this? Well, sadly, I am not a simpleton like you — I am a soup connoisseur. More importantly, I recognize a gimmick when I see it. Nothing infuriates me more at a dining establishment, whether it be a steroid-filled Turkish "bae" in sunglasses dangling salt over my overpiced slab of meat or being instructed to order a sandwich in the contemptuous "ocky way".
Nevertheless, I dared to devour. The soup was decent for a few sips, like a siren of Grecian lore not yet ready to show her ugly head. But then, my souply experience exploded. The chicken tasted stale. I shuddered. The mushrooms felt thick and cold. But the biggest sin, as it always is, was the broth.
It was cold. The gimmick had failed. For as much pomp and show had gone into this restaurant's presentation, the end product shook me to my core. For I was shaking because of how cold this soup was. It was lukewarm, but for soup, that may as well be a blizzard. The soup became a disgusting sauce filled with unsavory bites of poultry and fungus, a white nothingness of which to pour my sadness from the previous night. There was not even any spice, no noble pepper from the shores of Phuket, no red chili from Siam's picturesque tropics,no, nothing. I was lost.
My non-soup-knowing coworkers, however, were over the moon. They knew nothing of this soup's gross lack of true viscosity. Mirth and laughter were around me, yet I felt alone on this island. An island of my own making, and island of my heart, an island of Manhattan. We were saving cats, but at what cost? I had lost my appetite.
I realized then that I may be special. I was given this gift of soup reviewing to know the very lowest anguishes of our species. I was chosen to sift through the most sore of soups. Among the beasts, we humans are the only species that concoct soup. The monkeys do not. Nor do the antelopes and deers of the world. Certainly not the cats. The creatures of the sea swim in a broth of sorts, but that is a discussion for another day. I must consult the works of Linnaeus to answer that question of soup's evolution. But I digress — I was chosen as representative of all mankind to evaluate the delights of soup. To comprehend the very highest and lowest of souply achievement. To witness the very original sins of soup, like Eve's apple dropped in a bouillabaise.
I am your Jesus, just when it applies to soup. I am the messenger, the go between between liquid worlds. To other humans, I may seem annoying, a nuisance, and may never experience love. But I am special. I may wish to be not, I may rage at the world for cursing me like this, but I will bear this cross like the spoon in my fingers and the chopsticks on my thumb. I am your oracle of soup. Let me speak, let me throw up this disgusting tom kha gai. I am your mouth. I am special, though I wish not to be.
I review the rest of my trip as null, since it was not soup-related.
Soup Scores:
Soup 1: 8.2/10
Soup 2: 1.8/10 Had its moments
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