"4"^^ . "2014-08-03T00:00:00"^^ . . "Why do I keep coming here?\n\nFrom the very first time I ordered I knew it wasn't very good. At ten bucks for a thing of soup and two sides - don't forget your two sides! - it's a bad deal on its face. But what kind of idiot pays that kind of money when what you're getting is bland mush that is - in my non-expertise-based allegation - reheated from frozen?\n\nWell, this kind of idiot. I've known it was bad since my first fateful visit two years ago, and yet for some reason I've filled up my loyalty card at least four times over. This place has truly mastered the art of *seeming good* without actually being good, to the point that it's choked with crowds of us gullible Bay Street types every lunch hour despite spewing out some truly mediocre soup.\n\nAnyway, some observations.\n\nFirst, brace yourself for a quote-unquote premium soup experience. You get a nice bag (use it again for $.25 off your next order), a nice little napkin-wrapped spoon and, as I noted before, two sides - don't forget your two sides! - of your choice (apple, banana, carrot & celery sticks, bread of various sizes). This is how one convinces oneself to pay $10 for soup, I suppose.\n\nIf you really must eat here, stick to the creamy soups. I have to admit the bisques and other heavy cream soups are savoury and quite good, being unaffected by the (alleged) freezing process. Word of caution though: the creamier soups are RICH and heavy as lead, so don't try em before anything you'll need energy for.\n\nOutside of the creamy stuff, to put it bluntly the soups are ingredients bloated to puffy mush coated in bland salt sauce. This is especially true of any of the starch-containing soups: african peanut chicken is chicken and peanuts floating in mushy rice, tomato tortelloni is floury paste with vague tomato flavour. Same holds for chicken noodle, minestrone and pasta fagioli (minestrone with a few chunks of bacon thrown in to justify the higher \"meat\" price). Just serve the noodles separately if you're going to have it simmering all day (and then freeze and reserve it, allegedly)! \n\nThe starch-less ones are less mushy but still mediocre, sharing the same bland bases (god help you if you try the miracle diet soup and want to actually taste something) with none of the creamier soups' richness of flavour. I know spices are expensive, but come on. These are just objectively bad soups, and you should avoid them.\n\nDon't look to the chili to be any better. It doesn't matter what kind you get - and I've had 'em all at least twice. Especially bad is the chipotle chili, which often (but not always?) has chunks of odd-flavoured lunchmeat turkey. The \"kick-ass\" chili they were serving for a while did no such thing, so don't let the marketing fool you.\n\nThe soup is also rather glitchy. Sometimes I've had soups that were clearly mixed together: for example, I used to like the peppery beef goulash and ordered it regularly, until one day I had it and suddenly there were unexplained chunks of chicken and AWFUL discordant flavours - I'm pretty sure they mixed it with the carribean chicken. Similar experiences with the chili and other ones too, where soups I'd had many times suddenly changed dramatically for the worse. I don't know if it's a cost-cutting thing or just mistakes, but they definitely combine soups sometimes to disastrous results.\n\nOne thing in its favour is that the service is always good. The staff are very helpful - don't forget your two sides! - and friendly. Also, it's nice to be able to check out the website in advance to see what they have for the day.\n\nTo conclude, a metaphor. This place has pinned up a signed picture of the actor who played the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld, expressing how great he thinks the soup is. While Larry Thomas clearly has a certain aura of soup-authority (soup-eriority?) about him, if you think about it he presumably has no substantive soup-related skills or qualities whatsoever. \n\nThat is the Soup Nutsy."^^ . "3"^^ . "2"^^ . "2"^^ . . .