Taking Stock: Austinist's Guide To The Soup Peddler

After moving to Austin from New York last year, it was easy to feel disappointment in the limited food delivery options available. The restaurant delivery services aren't always prompt and charge steep delivery fees, many of the good ethnic food restaurants are dine-in or take-out only, and the best of the pizza places only deliver within a mile or two of their locations. Which brings us to The Soup Peddler, a unique concept in home delivery that has found great success in Austin's rather uncrowded delivery market.

The idea is this: The Soup Peddler sends a weekly email offering four soups, a quiche, a salad, a dessert, and a couple of entrees. You make your selection and order online, and a few days later on your designated weekly delivery day, The Peddler's orange El Camino-like truck deposits your order in a cooler you leave on your front porch. The soups come in a sealed pouch akin to a Ziploc bag, while entrees are placed in a foil tray then sealed in a airtight plastic pouch.

In January, we began an experiment to see which of the Soup Peddler's offerings were worth ordering in advance, throwing out the cooler for, and heating up. While the delivery of the items is convenient, there is still some prep time involved, especially in the baking of main dishes. The soup can be heated in the microwave, but the Soup Peddler recommends you (and we did) reheat it traditionally on the stove. In four months, we've sampled over 20 items from the service. The results were quite positive overall, with around 75% of the items passing the all-important "would I order this again?" test. A few misfires suggest that some tweaks are still needed to the item descriptions and/or recipes, but on the whole we've been very satisfied with the service and would recommend it to prospective customers.

Our general impressions were that the menu does offer some delivery values, especially in the weekly $8-$10 offerings. We enjoyed many of the cheaper soups as much if not more than the expensive offerings. Italian and Thai items were consistently excellent, as were many entrees, while the seafood soups and some of the far-flung ethnic items were somewhat less reliable. A full item-by-item report card is presented below:

Ajiaco (A+) This chicken and corn soup from Columbia has an incredible spice in it called guascas that is fantastic. Our first "wow" moment from SP. Really worth trying.

Bacon, Swiss, and Onion Quiche (A-) Bacon improves everything, and this quiche is no exception. Big slabs of bacon and a generous amount of cheese make this totally unhealthy but awfully tasty.

Cajun Corn Chowder (A) Great texture, with tons of corn flavor and some nice pepper and spice accents. Hearty and worthy of repeat orders.

Chicken Enchilada Casserole (A+) Excellent pumpkin (pipian) sauce, nice white meat chicken, crispy chips, and delicious beans. Perfect.

Cioppino (C) This expensive menu item is ok, but doesn't live up to the high price ($16) accorded it. The seafood is not particularly flavorful, though portions and the stock are fine. It may have something to do with its sitting in a pouch for 2 or 3 days, but this just didn't hit the right notes for us.

Eggplant Parmesan (A) The key here is the breading, which is moderately thin but full of flavor and not too greasy (it's baked rather that fried). Very nice, not so guilt-inducing version of this dish. SP is really good at Italian and Thai dishes as a rule.

Green Chile Stew (B+) Not the thickest stew in the world, but a pleasant mix of flavors done in a Southwestern, Santa Fe style. Enjoyable.

Italian Wedding (B+) The meatballs were quite good in this one and the broth was also pleasant. Really nice - just not the grand slam that some other SP dishes offer.

Kakosupa (F) You knew there would be a clunker. This Icelandic "chocolate soup" sounded interesting but comes across like a Ziploc full of cocoa. Nothing surprising or exciting about the taste or experience. Give it a pass.

Kaow Soi Kai (A) This is a curry, lime, and chicken soup with strong hot spices and some noodles for added heft. Hot, filling, and satisfying.

King Ranch Chicken (Incomplete) This was a polarizing item. One of us was annoyed that mushrooms dominated the preparation (there were far more mushrooms than chicken), while the other liked it just fine. So use your best judgment. Not as good as the enchilada casserole, though.

New England Clam Chowder (B) This was standard restaurant-quality clam chowder. Nice peppery flavor and some tasty veggies were included.

Pappa Al Pomodoro (A+) We've been wanting this since having it daily in Florence two years ago. This version is nearly perfect. Simple bread and tomato soup with olive oil. Delicious.

Pozole Rojo (A+) Amazing. Generous helpings of pork with a brown stock full of spices. Perhaps the best soup we've had from SP. Awesome.

Roulade De Porc (A) You could feed an army with this thing. Great fruit and stuffing middle, perfectly cooked pork, and nice wild rice underneath.

Sopa De Albondigas (B+) The meatballs were good but not great, but the hearty stock and crispy textured ingredients (carrots, cabbage) make it interesting.

Soup Au Pistou (A) A very flavorful and complex pesto, vegetable, and pasta soup. The French creation takes simple ingredients and turn them into something special. Medium-bodied and very filling. Well worth repeat orders.

Straight-Up Vegetable (C) This is supposed to be a simple preparation, and we wanted to like it more than we did, but we got an off batch. The Old Bay-filled broth was tasty, but the veggies were noticeably undercooked.

Sun-dried Tomato and Artichoke Quiche (B) This quiche was good, but paled in comparison to the bacon and Swiss as the artichokes couldn't quite fight through the eggs to give distinctive flavor to the dish. The sun-dried tomatoes fared a bit better.

Thai Green Curry (A) This is ass-kicking hot curry soup that practically requires a beer to accompany it. It's full of veggies and coconut milk, and may make your eyes water. Solid stuff.

Tom Kha Gai (A) This lemongrass, chicken, and coconut soup is another Thai winner from SP. They really have the whole spicy and sweet thing down cold, and the lemongrass and peppers really knock you around. I would order any Thai soup off the SP menu blind...they're that consistent.

Zimbabwe Peanut Stew (C) Not really seeing the "stew" here. Thin stock, which tastes good but is not substantial. Fine, but uninspired.

What do you think of The Soup Peddler? Let us know in the comments below.

[Austinist Interview: Talking Soup with David Ansel]
[Soup is Love]
[The Soup Peddler Website]
[The Soup Peddler MySpace]

Image via the author.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Tom Thornton in Food on May 22, 2007 1:50 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Genoka & Fern

The Soup Peddler is amazing! In 2005 a friend served me this lentil soup out of a weird pouch, it was delicious and I asked where did you get this? I've hardly missed a week since and I live an hour north. I just combine my pickup with errands or visits and find it takes a lot less time than shopping for fresh groceries that were mostly thrown out before I could find time to cook them. I eat better, save money compared to the wasted produce and eating out that used to be my norm and even save time despite the drive. My husband and I eat healthier meals and feel better. We enjoy the adventure of trying new and interesting foods and the comfort of returning regularly to old favorites. And we enjoy our weekly visits with the wonderful Soup Peddler crew. What more can you ask? Portobello Stroganoff is amazing--I think I ordered 10 last time and ate almost nothing else for a week!

Bill Coltharp

An entertaining menu outlines weekly selections that have proven consistantly reasonable in price, tasty and healthy.

For those who are "cooking challanged" this is the place for you, and, at no additional expense you support a local business with a high "wierd" content.

M1EK

The spicy carrot soup is the best by a long-shot. Next time it comes up we're ordering 4 or 5.

patsy

Jack, so harsh! Let the guy make some money. The food is good, fresh and delivered to you. Or if you prefer, you can bike to the community garden and harvest your own veggies for your own soup and be proud you didn't harm any dolphins.

Patrick C.

You know, the soup peddler guy talked about the bikes/cars thing in Keepin' It Weird -- the Zachary Scott play -- and basically said it came down to being the best to his employees that he could. Which made sense -- if they made all their deliveries by bike they'd have to dramatically cut their delivery radius.

jack

The soup peddler is a jerk. His prices have increased while his portions have decreased. And the reason they were on bikes was for environment friendly reasons. Now they have trucks. The environment got thrown to the way-side once profits were to be had.

adam

wonderful review. i also agree with chris that a follow up "report card" of local food establishments would be a great addition to the already attractive austinist lineup. in addition, the soup peddler rules.

chris

Great story. I'd love to see more similar ratings of Austin faves. I'm actually going to give the SP a try now.

Clarisa

Great feature! I love Tom Kha soup.

RoyJanik

Aw, man, I friggin' love The Zimbabwe Peanut Stew. I used to order from the Soup Peddler all the time, and it was by far my favorite dish.

erikamay

this is awesome and useful to the delivery gunshy!

thanks tom.

b

agreed!

this local business really needs summertime support, too, so pooooyfect timing, tom.

b

allen

fantastic list!

Laura

I heart the Soup Peddler. Their menu emails each week clearly indicate whether a soup is vegetarian - wonderful for the many who don't eat animals in their soups. The only thing I've ever disliked from the SP was their migas quiche. Kinda dry. Favorite soups: crema de elote and gazpacho.