Hugs for Your Tummy

There had to be some parameters when we first started talking around the office about the soups we love. First, we decided that soup is some kind of hot, savoury liquid with foodstuff floating or suspended in it, and it should have a rich and intricate palate. So, sorry stews, one-note broths and chilled soups, you are not invited. The savoury bowls of goodness that follow here are wildly different from each other, but they have in common a complexity of character and balance of flavours that make them so evocative on culinary and emotional levels that you will welcome cooler weather.

Vibrant Veggies

It’s one of the brightest soups I’ve ever seen. The Laughing Monkey Hot Pot from Café Mosaics is a soup for all seasons: the coconut satay broth tastes summery, while the whole package is a serious solution to warming up when the mercury starts to dip low. The bowl is filled to the brim with bright orange broth and piled high with vegetables. Broccoli, peppers, mushrooms, onion and brussels sprouts share a home in the broth with vermicelli noodles, while a garnish of spinach, alfalfa sprouts, peanuts, hemp hearts and chia seeds sits on top to welcome you into the experience. The serving is huge — the bowl is easily twice the size I expected — so prepare to have leftovers or to share with a dining partner. This soup is both vegan and gluten free, so everyone can indulge in soup season.

Café Mosaics
Garneau | 10844 82 Avenue NW, Edmonton | 780.433.9702

Pho_king_00027-HR — Brisket Pho from Pho King

photography by Bluefish Studios

Nourishing Noodles

If you like pho, chances are you have a go-to place for picking it up or ordering in. Deviating from my usual choice, I took the recommendation of a colleague and ordered the Brisket Pho from Pho King. Twenty-hour slow cooked beef pho, rice noodles, green and white onions, cilantro, bean sprouts, topped with lime and basil, everything this soup delivers works well together. I also opted for sriracha in mine for a bit of a kick. Pho King also manages to pull off a magic trick — somehow the brisket stays nice and solid in the broth, but melts in your mouth as soon as you take a bite. The rice noodles nicely absorb the broth, creating an efficient way to get more of it into your mouth. There’s a high chance that this becomes my new go-to pho order.

Hearty Helping

Imagine coming inside from a brisk afternoon of raking up fallen leaves: you warm up, the scent of autumn all around. Well, that entire feeling is generated by a spoonful of the borscht from Uncle Ed’s Restaurant. Some soups are good as a side dish, others as the whole meal; this one definitely qualifies as the latter when you order the larger of the two sizes. The pork broth base is a dark purple-red from the beets, which — along with chunks of potato, onion and carrot — are in perfect proportion to one another. Add a healthy dollop of sour cream and mix it in to make a flavour that tastes like autumn comfort.

The soup was first available at Stawnichy’s Mundare Sausage House, which opened for retail sales in 1959 and evolved to include the homey Ukrainian eatery Uncle Ed’s in 1986. So you’re in for a treat that has stood the test of time. When the weather starts to get cooler, reach for this borscht to keep your heart and belly full.

Uncle Ed’s Restaurant
Beacon Heights | 4824 118 Avenue NW, Edmonton | 780.471.1010