Midtown Lunch

I really enjoy soup but usually avoid it for lunch for fear of major mid-afternoon munchies. The exception to this rule would be homey and delicious Asian noodle soups, but I’m sure that’s no surprise to regular readers of this blog — we tend to be partial to the Asian goodies. Anyway, a month or two ago, I noticed that the Hot Soup cart had returned the northeast corner of 45th street and 6th avenue for the winter season. Soup carts are usually invisible to me, because of my previously stated aversion to cup-of-soup lunches, but the unusually long line caught my eye. I checked in recently and couldn’t resist trying the interesting (or maybe just weird) sounding “chicken jerky” soup listed on the menu.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from chicken jerky soup, and the flashes of smoky beef jerky in my head certainly didn’t help. I was surprised that the soup had a slightly creamy consistency with flecks of spices visible in the broth. Filled with rice, the soup included chunks of red and green peppers, onions, carrots but very small pieces of chicken and not much of it. (Absolute points off for the chicken.) The 12 oz soup is $4.50 and came with half (??) a poppy seed a roll. Friends, be very careful removing the top from the soup cups: mine was filled up to the very top, and I nearly ended up with scalding soup all over the place.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I enjoyed it as much as my fellow ML’ers enjoyed the downtown Hot Soup cart in the past, but with all the rice and veggie chunks swimming around in the creamy liquid and a half roll to sop it all up, this was a pretty filling and tasty soup. Strange name aside, I might need to make a return trip this winter to see what else is on tap.

Hot Soup Cart, NE corner of 45th street and 6th avenue