Perfect Tomato Soup
I had lunch at the new-ish coffee shop/caf?¬© called “Finch’s Coffee & Tea House” (hours: 9 to 6 Monday to Friday, 10 to 4 Saturday). For Vancouverites, it’s located at the corner of Pender and Homer opposite the mid-century modern furniture shop and only a block away from my office. Being a corner caf?¬©, it has two floor-to-ceiling windows that are almost always fogged up (hey, this is Vancouver) and has lovely, tiny square tables on risers by the window. Perfect for watching our local aggressive panhandlers.
Lunch was a baguette with Blue Brie, tomatoes, lettuce and prociutto with olive oil and balsamic vinegar served on a sheet of butcher paper. You can never say “no” to things that have “blue” and “brie” together… and hey, you can indulge when you only eat barely half the sandwich! The lovely thing about the butcher paper is you can wrap up the rest of your baguette a la Subway style.
The soups at Finch’s are made fresh daily. So fresh, that the last two times I attempted to have lunch there the response was “sorry, the soup’s not ready yet” and “sorry, we’ve run out of soup”. They say that they try to time it so the soup is ready at 12 noon. Successful today, the soup was the most perfect tomato with chunks of fresh, tender-crisp zucchini, chickpeas, rosemary, basil and olive oil. Perfectly sweet, not at all sour… and just fresh, fresh, fresh.
They also make a mushroom, yogurt and black pepper soup as well as a (I think) cream of celery. I think I’ll have to go back.