Got an email from What’s The Soup partner Heather Cathcart the other week asking if we could meet face to face sometime over soup.  You bet.  Heather recommended Veggie Planet in Harvard Square, Cambridge.Harvard Square’s a happening place.  Lots of activity and energy both youthful and mature (even if some of the people were chronologically dated, they were definitely not “old” - no way!).  Heather grew up in the area and told me the place has been there for about 50 years.  Aside from being a popular vegetarian restaurant with very cool youthful color and pure, honest flavor, Veggie Planet also doubles as Club Passim, an extremely intimate and pleasantly simple music venue where even the farthest seat from the stage is closer than any front row seat in a bigger, larger crowd setting.  It’s also a place where big names and local bands play with equal billing. 

Both of us ordered a small bowl of the soup of the day, spicy tomato soup with dill, from the open kitchen counter.  I’m not a big dill fan but I wanted to try the soup anyway.  The soup was served up immediately, steamy hot in bowl that definitely was much larger than any “small” I’ve ever seen and came with a healthy sized piece of toasted whole grain pita bread on the side. Both Heather and I agreed that dill wasn’t the dominant flavor in the soup.  Neither of us knew for sure the source of the heat that made the soup spicy.  Heather thought on the spot it could’ve been either ground white pepper or cayenne.  She later thought it could’ve been red chili sauce from the bottle we’d seen while ordering and actually called to confirm that.  I’m a spice fan, and I’ve gotta’ say the first spoonful packed a punch.  But it wasn’t overbearing - hey, Veggie Planet did forewarn me by leading off the soup’s title with the word “spicy”. 

As I ate the rest of the soup, the heat from the red chili sauce actually receded as the base flavors of the soup came through stronger and stronger.  I could taste and enjoy the fullness of the fresh tomatoes that came both pureed in a vegetable stock as well as in fleshy, gorgeous red chunks.  Heather also got the lowdown on the other ingredients that rounded out the soup’s rich, exciting flavor: onions, curry powder, garlic and, of course, dill.  Not only was the soup incredibly flavorful down to the last warm spoonful - Heather said she still had the flavor singing in her mouth when she got home.- it was also outrageously inexpensive: $3.43 for a small bowl, $4.14 for a large bowl.  What a great deal for a fantastic flavor in a very “cool” place I’d highly recommend to youthful spirits of any age.

Veggie Planet: 47 Palmer Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Open 11:30 A.M. to 10:30 P.M., 7 days a week. Phone: 617-661-1513