No Soup For You!

Al Yeganeh, immortalized as "The Soup Nazi" on Seinfeld, will be expanding his soup domination of America this year, with 123 planned outlets across the country. Within seven years, the plan is to have 1,000 soup stands in malls and airports. That's pretty ambitious. This year, the invasion begins in the hometown of the Atomic Editor, Ridgewood, New Jersey. For $10, you'll get 8 oz. of soup, bread, a drink, fresh fruit and a chocolate. I think that's pretty fair.

I have to admit, I've always wondered if the soup was really that good. Then I saw this shot of the line for his goods in NYC. Holy macaroni! That must be liquid gold.

Here in DC, the food court at the Reagan Building features a low-rent rip-off called "Soup Nutsy" with an Al Yeganeh-nish angry cook as the logo. Not so good, this soup. I remember getting a bowl of minestrone, only to discover an enormous fly floating at the top when I opened it at my desk. Now, after some of the stuff I ate in Russia, this should not be a big deal, but dammit, this is DC. I brought the bowl back, but there was no one on staff in Nutsy-ville who spoke functional English. And, sadly, I do not know the Spanish word for fly. I finally had to fish it out with a spoon to show them, which pretty much reduced their line of customers to nil. They kept trying to offer me a fresh bowl from the same pot.

I finally just walked away in digust. No lunch, no money back. Arrrrg.

Not as bad as the rat in the dining area the Sasquatch and I saw at some Chinese place on K Street, but still, not pretty.