The French Onion Soup Report
Installment #1
In my continuing endeavor to rate various French Onion soups throughout this fair city, country, world, etc. I came across this Parisian culinary staple on the menu of the Film Center Café on 45th and 9th. I, of course, decided to order myself a crock.
The soup came in a lovely white crock of modern design, with a sturdy handle that was useful when turning the bowl to take advantage of the best angle of attach. Going just by looks I could tell that this was going to be one pleasure of a dish. The slightly browned cheese was layered thickly atop bread that was completely soaked through with the luscious brown soup stock. You cannot always go by looks alone however, and in this soup, most unfortunately, looks are where the pleasure ended.
The stock of the soup itself was quite weak, a great disappointment given that French Onion soup really should have a thick and quite decadent stock. It even tasted as if the chef had used chicken stock instead of beef, a huge no-no. The cheese topping was pleasant enough, but how hard is melted cheese to do? The bread was really not so hot, having almost disintegrated into the stock by the time I got to eat it. Don’t get me wrong, I love my soggy bread, but when the flour actually breaks down and disintegrates into the stock we have a problem. It was also a disappointment to discover that my soup was cooling all too quickly. Apparently this bowl, which I had previously given so much credit to, was an extremely poor insulator. I eat my soup fast, so if the soup is cool by the time I’m finished the regular restaurant patron would have cold broth come the end of their spooning.
So there we have it; my first French Onion soup review: a sad disappointment. I must add at the end here that the rest of the food at the restaurant was quite good. In addition the service was great and the restaurant had a nice mellow atmosphere. So go try it out, just stay away from the soup.