Soup Diary 120217

Okay, so I have some early returns on the two places that opened recently near my house that are offering homemade soup on a daily basis (well, almost a daily basis). I've now visited each place several times. They are both about six blocks from my house, only about a block away from each other, so I've gotten into the habit of taking a lunchtime stroll that loops around by one or the other and picking up a cup. The first comment is that, unfortunately, one has been closed on a couple of occasions when I came by, and the other has been out of soup on a couple of visits-- so they aren't entirely a sure thing. The next point is that the place that is sometimes closed offers a choice every day of two standbys (chili and chicken dumpling) and a soup du jour (so far though my experience is that the du jour has only two options in rotation: French Onion and bacon corn chowder), while the other has only had one choice, though I've yet to see the same thing offered twice (though again, several times they've been out by the time I got there). The first place takes longer to serve-- I suspect they are microwaving-- while the second place fills my cup from a pot on the stove within moments of placing my order. Another difference: the warmed over soup is a buck less per cup, and comes with a variety of cracker packs (four or five per visit), while the competition didn't even include a plastic spoon (I generally get a cup to go and eat at home, so that's not really a big deal). Of course, in the final analysis, none of these factors is really all that critical, if the soup is good. In terms of quality, I'd rate them pretty much identical. I think the best cup I've had so far from either place was the potato chowder at the more expensive place, but the bacon corn chowder from the other place was pretty close. By the way, I haven't mentioned the names because in the unlikely event that the proprietors of ether see this I don't want them to think I'm knocking them (at least in relation to the competition). Taking all factors into account, I expect to be a regular at both places and hope they are around for a good long time. They don't seem poised to match the soup nirvana that Fables Cafe was a couple years ago, nor the place in Tacoma with the endless daily menu of exotic options, but for a small town like Dillon we're pretty lucky to have them.