It's all about the soup

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting about some local cafés with a work colleague.  For each café that we had both been to I made some comment about the soup there – my colleague was quick to point out that it seemed a lot like I rated cafés by the quality of their soup.  After some thought, it turns out that this is indeed the way it is these days. With the endless hours that I spend on my bike, there is plenty of time to ponder all manner of things, and one day my mind turned to pondering “the soup”, why do I always order the soup at a café? What makes soup good soup? Should I be judging a café based on the quality of the soup?  Ahhh, the subconscious mind of an ultradistance athlete working on life’s great problems.

So the soup – After much contemplation of such weighty issues, and a significant amount of soup eating this weekend I think I have some answers.  Most of my café visits occur in conjunction with training missions – often feeling at least two of the following states, cold, hungry, tired, sore (if those states didn’t exist I wouldn’t be stopping).  In these cases, soup is warm and comforting and has a miraculous way of making you feel better!  One of the most notable examples of the healing power of the soup was on one of the first rides around the “no wimps allowed” ride, 130km of very very hilly and very beautiful back roads around Kawhia, Te Anga and Waitomo.  Two thirds of the way around, I was feel worse for wear and asked if we could stop in Waitomo for a few minutes and have a coffee – it was then that we discovered the Huhu café (www.huhucafe.co.nz), they were serving potato and leek soup which came with the most delicious bread.  Within minutes of consuming the soup I was revived and the last third of that ride was almost effortless.  Hardly a “no wimps allowed” ride has gone by since then without stopping to eat the soup – without fail it is tasty, seasonal, homemade and revives us.  This weekend we had roast pepper and chili! 

The soup needs to be homemade, last winter, after a cold wet mountain bike ride we turned up at a café, I was excited to order some warming soup, imagine my disappointment when it tasted as though it had been made from a packet, I have not returned to that café since.  I mean, how hard is it to make soup……if you can’t do that you shouldn’t be running a café!

For me, I think you can judge a café by its soup!  The effort a chef puts into making a good tasty, hearty well balanced soup says a lot about how much they care about their food in general.  Currently my two favorites are the Huhu Café in Waitomo (we start discussing the soup up to 3 hours before arriving in Waitomo) and The Shack in Raglan – they both also serve good coffee but caffeine and the ultradistance athlete is a separate topic all together.

It is all about the soup – I wonder if I could convince the owners of the Huhu to come and cook soup for me at the Decatriathlon????