NOT: The Soup Place, 14 Centre Place, Melbourne

Before I have a mob of art school students boycotting the blog in protest at my NOT, let me get a word in edgewise. The Soup Place isn”t bad. It’s just that compared with all of the cafes in Centre Place and the vicinity, I wouldn’t particularly recommend it as a must-visit.

From the bustling alleyway the cauldrons of ever-changing home-made soup varieties lures the passerby with the promise of warmth and comfort. When I asked the waiter which one was the best soup, he suggested the Portugese chicken.

For $8.50 I received an enormous bowl of steaming soup with two slices of non-descript bread. Containing lots of rice and chickpeas and a few hunks of meat, it certainly was very filling and wholesome, but honestly for me soup is soup is soup – I just can’t get that excited by it. My companion had a spinach and cheese roll which was equally filling, mainly due to the presence of what seemed like a whole wheel of cheese. If I’d eaten that I wouldn’t have been able to stay awake for the afternoon.

If you do get a thrill from soup then maybe The Soup Place is for you. For around the same price, I’d prefer a sandwich from Migo’s, sushi from Sushi Ten or curry from Jolly J’s Curry Shack.