Soup Diary 101130

On the day after Thanksgiving, my sister Liz promised to take me to a soup place in Tacoma that served up something like twelve different varieties every day, including many exotic flavors (she showed me their website, and it made my mouth water). So I was anticipating something new and exciting like roasted jalapeno or watermelon gazpacho or Ethiopian spiced greens... you get the idea. Sadly, when we arrived at our destination we discovered that they had closed for the entire long Thankisgiving weekend-- no soup for me, at least there (by the way, peering in the window, the place did kind of resemble the Soup Nazi's stand from Seinfeld, further adding to my disappointment). So we ended up at a little cafe a little ways away, where the soup options were chicken noodle and clam chowder. I had the former, and it was okay, but virtually identical to every other bowl of chicken noodle I've had over the years (a dead ringer, in fact for the bowl I had in Missoula just a few weeks back). Believe me, when your mouth is getting all droolly at the prospect of some Ecuadorian peanut soup, chicken noodle is just not going to cut it.
Luckily, this place also offered pie, and in particular a sour cream lemon pie, that almost made up for the humdrum soup selection. I doubt I would've got pie at the other place, so in the end, I reckon I came out close to even-- and I can still look forward to going to the soup place on my next visit. By then my expectations will likely rise to the level where I have to sample two or three of their specialties. So you can look forward to a really long diary entry after I get back to Tacoma.