Cold-weather comfort

Readers suggest their favorite soups

Stacee Sledge

Dec 12, 2002 — I'm recovering from a terrible cold this week. Could there be a better time to review area soup selections?

I put out the call a couple weeks ago, looking for your suggestions for scrumptious soups. A theme developed quickly, and it didn't take long to make my list of restaurants to visit.

Colophon Café

In my very unscientific poll of reader responses, the Colophon Café won hands down. If you're looking for cold-weather comfort food, there's no better destination than this cozy eatery tucked in among the volumes at Village Books.

Soups

Mambo Italiano  1303 12th St., Fairhaven  Phone: 734-7677  Menu items sampled: French onion soup $6   The Cliff House  331 N. State St.  Phone: 734-8660  Menu items sampled:  Whiskey crab soup $4.95/$5.95   Colophon Café  1208 11th St., Fairhaven  Phone: 647-0092  Menu items sampled: Cream o' mushroom, small bowl with bread and cheese $5.75  Mexican corn and bean, small bowl with bread and cheese $5.75  African peanut, small bowl with bread and cheese $5.75   Anthony's HomePort  25 Bellwether Way  Phone: 647-5588  Menu items sampled: Clam chowder $2.95/$3.95/$8.95

What you see is what you get at Colophon. As with the Colophon's other delectable menu items, from sandwiches to salads to sweets, it takes pride in their handmade soups, created from the best ingredients available, with no added flavor enhancers or artificial flavors.

Creative concoctions include its mainstay soups, African peanut, clam chowder, split pea and Mexican corn and bean. But it also offers a soup du jour, and just listen to these tantalizing titles: honey chicken chili, cheddar ale, salmon dill bisque and an award-winning Thai ginger chicken. The delicious-sounding list goes on and on. Grab a soup calendar that lets you know which days these special soups are sold.

All of the hot soups served at Colophon come with slices of French bread, a whole grain roll or corn tortilla chips. During a recent visit, a group of us each ordered a small bowl of soup with bread and cheese, selecting from cheddar or Swiss.

Delivered on a long rectangular bread board, each bowl of steaming soup is settled securely into a round hole within the dark wood plank.

Cream of mushroom was the soup of the day on our recent visit, and I found it sublime, the ideal antidote for my sniffles. A mix of pearl rice, cream cheese, half and half, cream sherry and milk make the base for this luscious vegetarian soup that's full to the brim with sliced mushrooms.

The Mexican corn and bean soup is a vegan favorite, well worth trying. Round corn chips stand up decoratively in this chunky soup of simmered red kidney beans, corn, tomatoes, onion, garlic in a vegetable-juice base. Chili powder, black pepper, cumin and a bit of sugar meld with the ingredients to make this basic soup anything but. I recommend the optional side of sour cream to add an interesting complement to this already interesting dish.

One reader told me that "it all begins and ends with the African peanut soup at the Colophon." A striking intermingling of ground peanuts, ginger root, tomatoes, garlic, chili peppers, turkey and chicken stock, this superlative soup is a bit on the spicy side and absolutely heavenly.

What more do I need to say? I've never had a soup at the Colophon that wasn't utterly pleasing. And to top it all off, its generous with its recipes, too. Purchase a copy of "The Colophon Café Best Soups" cookbook at the register.

Mambo Italiano

Just up the street from the Colophon Café is Mambo Italiano, an area restaurant that tops my list for friendly wait staff.

Mambo Italiano exudes my favorite ambience in a restaurant: sophisticated yet casual. The dining room boasts soaring ceilings, exposed brick and silver duct work, and colorful artwork atop a backdrop with earthy red and taupe paint touches and black woodwork.

Mambo Italiano serves a fine French onion soup. An Italian restaurant ladling up a potage Français? Mais oui. Don't question why, just go and revel in the eatery's "zuppa specialtia." Hands down, it's the best French onion soup I've had in years.

Served in a simple, elegant pedestal tureen atop a matching white saucer and sprinkled with fresh Italian parsley, this soup was thick with tendrils of cooked, sweet onions in a flavorful beef broth.

Topping it off was a thick round of chewy crostini soaked through with broth and further crowned with a layer of gruyere cheese, baked to a melty mess that stretched when you lifted your spoon. Bits of the salty cheese clung over the edge of the bowl, cooked to a crunch, and drops of the soup spilled over the side of the white china just a touch, mirroring the beautiful interior of the restaurant with its relaxed manner.

Anthony's HomePort

Many of you also wrote in to tell me about the terrific clam chowder at Anthony's HomePort. Several readers claimed it was the best they'd ever had, which is certainly saying something in this area of the country.

So it was no surprise when I learned that Anthony's — a small regional chain of 15 restaurants that originated in 1975 in Kirkland — has topped numerous area readers' polls from Evening Magazine and The Seattle Times to Bellingham's Every Other Weekly, all of them naming it the best seafood restaurant around.

The Bellingham Anthony's has a captivating view of Squalicum Harbor with a spacious, sleek and, at the same time, comfortable dining room.

This attention to quality shines through.

You can order its award-winning chowder by the cup or bowl, but I prefer to go all out and get the Anthony's Baker's Bowl and Caesar Salad, which pairs the rich, creamy, tasty chowder — served in a hollowed-out toasted sourdough loaf — and a classic Caesar salad crowned with fresh parmesan and crunchy croutons.

And instead of cream, chefs at Anthony's use half and half, resulting in a lighter — although not too thin — chowder. To keep the chowder from scorching during preparation, it's cooked in a steam-jacketed kettle, a pot within a pot with steam trapped in the space between them.

Another key to Anthony's award-winning chowder is its use of the freshest high-quality ingredients. The restaurant began operating its own seafood company in Seattle in 1985, further proving that you can't go wrong at this popular waterfront mainstay.

The Cliff House

And what would a soup roundup be without mention of my all-time favorite, the whiskey crab soup at the Cliff House?

I've raved about it before, but it bears repeating: This soup will knock your socks off.

Served by the cup or the bowl, this house specialty has that indescribably quality that lets you know you could never recreate such a soup in your own kitchen. Strings of flavorful fresh crab meat punctuate the creamy rich bisque, complemented with spices that give the soup just the right bit of bite.

Sop up the last bits of soup with slices of soft baguette, and know you've just experienced one of the best menu items any restaurant in Bellingham has to offer.

I wasn't able to try all the suggestions sent in by readers, but if there's one thing I've learned in the year I've been writing this column, it's to listen carefully to what you have to say. You're a font of information and always spot-on with your ideas. So here's a list of some of the other places you told me to try. I look forward to sampling them all.

• The split pea soup at the Dutch Bakery in Lynden.

• Anything at Great Harvest Bread Co.

• La Fiamma's tomato basil soup.

• The daily soups at Koi Café make mouths water at the nearby Herald newsroom.