Midtown Lunch

Last week I wasn’t feeling so great, and come lunch time visions of noodle soup were dancing in my head. Ramen was the first thing to come to mind, but there aren’t many great options down here that didn’t require me to walk many blocks on a cold day. Instead, I honed in on good old reliable Soma by Nature on William St. (btw. John & Fulton) with every intention of trying their ramen or udon soup, but then I saw something called dumpling rice cake soup which was described as “dumpling rice cake, drop egg in beef stock.” I had no idea what this meant, but I ordered myself some and prepared to find out.

First impression: There is no vegetable in this lunch, just a whole lot of carbs and protein. So it wasn’t the illness-axing lunch I was hoping for, but at least it was filling! I ordered the large size ($7.95) which comes with a cup of rice on the side which turned out to be mostly unnecessary since there are rice cakes and three or four mandoo floating in the broth. Also, the broth definitely tasted like chicken to me instead of beef.

I love dumplings in soup and was super sad to see naked gobs of meat floating in my soup when I opened it. The wrappers of all but one of the dumplings had either already disintegrated or did so when I tried to pick it up with chopsticks. The porky filling was great, but I don’t think I would get these dumplings in soup again due to this construction flaw. The rice cakes were all at the bottom of the container and it became a fun game fishing around and getting either an oval cake or clump of egg.

While next time I would request the addition of some vegetables to this soup (or get another kind),it’s really filling and there aren’t many places in the Financial District where you can find rice cakes.

Soma by Nature, 123 William St. (btw. John & Fulton), (212) 608-8850