I could.
I could write a funny introductory paragraph that somehow incorporates Seinfeld into this post which would 1) be pop culturally interesting, and 2) perhaps land me some natural search traffic for keywords like “Seinfeld,” “Soup Nazi,” and “Kramer” from obsessive psycho junkies who actually look beyond page 22 of Google results.
I could. However, I won’t. I can’t.
I have never seen a single episode of Seinfeld.
*pause for the "What?!?!?"*
Let me qualify that statement to make it a little bit more accurate. I have seen pieces of episodes of Seinfeld, but I have never watched a single episode in its entirety. I just couldn't get into it.
So, instead, let me just talk about my friends. My friends are pretty much fawesome (kind of like "fugly," but fawesome).
When your friends go to New York, they txt you from the top of the Empire State Building "wsh u wr here" and ask you to pick them up from the airport when they get back. When my fawesome friends go to New York, they pix msg me desserts and bring back three little bags of soup from The Soup Man, which they drop off to me at my apartment on their way home from the airport (of course, if they had asked, I would have picked them up - I love the airport).
Awesome. Soup. Fawesome.
I have no idea how they smuggled that *ish* onto the plane, but they did. Maybe pre-packaged, sealed soup is not on the TSA's Do Not Bring list. I also think that unlike any flimsy, fluidesse pre-packaged soups off-the-shelves, there is no way that these soups from The Soup Man can be considered liquid.
They brought me three: Jambalaya, Chicken Vegetable, and Turkey Chili. (Hush. I know Turkey Chili is not soup, okay?)
The packaging for The Original Soup Man soups is nothing special. In fact, the colors and the images are almost as unappetizing as Wolfgang's forced smile on his soups. However, there is something about soup being packaged in plastic bags. For some reason, heating and eating pre-made soup that comes out of a vacuum-sealed Grab-n-Go bag seems fresher, and feels a lot less like cheating than eating soup that has been mechanically siphoned into cans. There is nothing wrong with canned soups, and often turn to them when I am sick and don't have the energy to make something from scratch, but I always feel like I'm cheating in some way. The Soup Man is not "canned" and it is nice to be able to actually see the contents inside rather than a professionally styled photograph on a label.
plastic feels fresher
chili today, hot tamale
I ate all three soups in one day. I didn't just taste all three soups in one day. I ate the entire package of Chicken Vegetable for breakfast, the entire package of Turkey Chili for lunch, and the entire package of Jamabalaya for dinner.
Each package, I think, has three servings. At the very least, two.
The Turkey Chili was my favorite. It definitely lacked the heat I seek, but I remedied that with an obscene amount of sriracha. It may sound like the wrong mix - Asian hot sauce in an all-American chili - but that's what I'm all about. Asian and American and hot and chilly. I didn't love the Jamabalaya, as it basically tasted to me like an earthy chili. Chicken Vegetable was definitely better than any canned version I've ever had, but of course, nothing ever beats homemade.
Nothing ever beats fawesome friends.
The Original SoupMan
866.SOUPED.UP
www.originalsoupman.com/
** a year ago today, usinger's big, thick sausage popped my cherry in milwaukee **
tags :: food : and drink : american : restaurants : reviews : los angeles : new york
Anonymous says
1. The issues with the franchisor are much deeper than it appears.
1. The company is undercapitalized. An investment bank retained to raise capital for the franchisor had discontinued its efforts after having received commitments for approximately 25% of the targeted capital. This was a result of the poor operating results of the company and its underlying franchisees.
2. The company has been seeking an acquiror of its operations. Throughout this effort the issues and challenges brought to the attention of the company by its franchisees have been quietly addressed but none of the problems have been resolved.
3. The misrepresentations made by the franchisor to induce franchisees to acquire territories and open up an Original Soupman outlet are many: (a) understatement of food costs; (b) co-branding with Cremalita ice cream to balance overall sales in warm months was abandoned soon after first 12 stores opened for business; (c) mandated use of cups and bowls that are 25% larger than purported serving portions, resulting in giving away 25% more product than consumer was paying for and at the same time causing an increase in purchases of product from the company to replenish inventory.