Week 9: Los Angeles Soup

When I started this blog 9 weeks ago at 1 am, I didn't give a lot of thought to what would happen if I were away from my kitchen and didn't get to make soup. So here I am in Los Angeles for work for a full 7 days. Since it is my blog, I guess that means I can make the rules. So instead of making soup, I am eating soup. Not every day or all day long, but if I'm there and soup is on the menu and it looks good, I'm gonna order it, photograph it, and eat it! Sounds like a souper challenge to me!

Grilled Cheese Food Truck
I have been strangely obsessed with the new Food Truck movement that has blown up around the country. And LA had done it best. To be honest, I sought out this truck solely for the grilled cheese. But since tomato soup and grilled cheese are pretty much like peanut butter & jelly, this one was easy. Through tweets and facebook, gourmet food trucks have developed a following in LA County. I found out about the Grilled Cheese truck and followed it to Venice Boulevard. Even though this blog is about soup, I must discuss the sandwiches. We ordered the Cheesy Mac & Rib and the Brie Melt. Both were incredible amazing. The Mac & Rib is exactly what it sounds like: macaroni and cheese with shredded pork ribs. The brie melt was a double cream brie with fig paste, almonds and a bit of smoked turkey. Although these grilled cheese sandwiches contain more than cheese, make no mistake. Cheese is front and center in these sandies. And, of course, the tomato soup for dipping. The soup had a similar taste to my tomato fennel recipe from week 6. Delish! And although the sandwiches could stand on their own, the tomato soup on the menu just validated that food from a truck can be just as good as a 5 star restaurant!

El Paso Inn, Olvera Street
I took a little walk down Olvera Street in LA's Chinatown neighborhood with a friend and we randomly chose on of the many Mexican restaurants in this little tourist area. It was a rainy day, and we didn't have much time, so we figured a nice big bowl of soup would be perfect. (And yes, it does rain in L.A.). I ordered abondiga soup. This is a traditional, broth-based Mexican soup with meatballs (abondigas in Espanol) and veggies. At home I don't often see this on the menu; rather the menudo, pozole and cocido are the more popular sopas. This soup was quite good, but not great. The broth had a lot of flavor and the different zucchini and slices of carrots were also very tasty. The abondigas tho, which should be the star of the soup, were not extremely flavorfull. They were not bad, but not fabulous. Still, the soup hit the spot on a rainy day and photographed very well. My friend had the tortilla soup. I didn't try it but she said it was delish and ate it all up. We were both quite satisfied with this souper lunch!




Philippe's
L.A. can be intimidating if you don't know where to go. So when my USC friend suggested dinner near Chinatown at the "home of the french dip" sandwich shop, I said YES! Again, I went there for their sandwich, and it was AWESOME, but I also ordered one of Philippe's daily soups. I tried the cream of spinach since the navy bean didn't appeal to me. I usually try to stay away from cream based soups as a general rule. They are very rich and heavy and they are bad, bad, bad in terms on fat & calories. But, I'm on vaycay (sorta) so I figured what the heck. Although I was expecting a savory, creamy, buttery flavor mixed in with some spinach, the soup reminded me more of dip. If I would have had some cheese to melt in it, it would have been the perfect cheesy spinach dip! Oh well, not all soups can be as good as mine ;-)

I still have 2 days left in LA, so I might be updating this if there is more soup to be eaten. Otherwise, stay tuned next week for the first of the Spring soups coming from my kitchen. I can't wait to hit the farmers markets for the new spring veggies!