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Turning over a new leaf? Spend a little green at Souper!Salad! | |
| By Nancy Hobbs Special to The Tribune |
1/23/2004 | |
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MIDVALE -- It seems an American universal: After a season of gluttony and overindulgence, January lumbers in with nasty reminders, including bulging girths and depleted wallets. Time to cut back, pare down and trim away -- or pay the consequences. Yes, we're talking economy and scale. All those rich and expensive dinners out now necessitate cheaper alternatives, as well as less caloric ones. It's a good time to try the buffet at Souper!Salad! The concept behind the national chain, with four locations in the Salt Lake valley, is simple. Begin with an extensive salad bar, touting more than five dozen options, starting with the most basic iceberg lettuce mix or romaine blend, and continue through the sliced mushrooms, green peas, kidney beans and diced ham. Top it off with more dressings than you can shake a carrot at, and finally a half dozen toppings, including spicy peanuts, croutons, sunflower seeds and raisins. And that is just the salad side of lunch or dinner, six days a week. Continue on to the soup bar, where four daily soups -- a vegetarian, bean, chicken and a second meat option -- rotate among the company's 30-plus recipes. There also is a taco bar, with a basic spiced ground beef filling, a couple of salsas, grated cheese, taco shells, chips and melted Velveeta-like cheese. Armando De La Cruz, general manager of the Midvale Souper!Salad!, explained that all of the Utah locations, including two more restaurants in Orem and Ogden, are corporate-owned. That means that, while each restaurant is overseen by a manager such as De La Cruz, decisions about how it is to be run, including hours, rotating menus, etc., are made at the corporate level. Having visited the Midvale location for this review, I can vouch for the friendliness of the staff, as well as the pride they obviously take in keeping the buffet line well stocked, the restaurant tables and floors immaculate, and patrons served with fountain drinks, clean silverware and essentials forgotten through the buffet line. The food is less consistent. Though I wouldn't expect gourmet cuisine at budget prices, the cream soups were gelatinous and lacking essentials. The clam chowder, for example, was short on clams, and the broccoli-cheese soup had very little broccoli. The rice and bean soup, on the other hand, was very good, but too tepid for my taste -- especially given our frigid temperatures of late, when a bowl of hot -- not merely warm -- soup is what one yearns for. The restaurant also offers a choice of "homemade" breads at the end of the soup buffet, including a mildly spiced gingerbread, a blueberry bread with what tasted like dried, imitation blueberries (the mix is sold at the counter), focaccia and small squares of pizza. None of the choices was spectacular, but they weren't bad, either. Given the bottom line, it's hard to complain. And speaking of bottom line, my reason for going to Souper!Salad! would be for the greens . . . and their adornments. Sometimes a generous plate of nothing but raw vegetables hits the spot, and at Souper!Salad! you can find all of that you could possibly eat -- or, as the promotions wisely state, "all you care to eat" -- at a reasonable price. The cost for adults, for lunch or dinner, is $5.49 plus tax; children under 5 eat for a mere 99 cents, and their older siblings, up to age 12, eat for $2.49. I noticed most kids head straight to the taco bar at Midvale. After loading up on nachos and tacos, they make a beeline for the do-it-yourself sundae bar, where soft ice cream can be topped with sauces, sprinkles, nuts and candy. Even for families on a tight budget, Souper!Salad! might make for an affordable, and filling, night out. ----- Nancy Hobbs is The Tribune's restaurant reviewer. The newspaper covers the cost of meals at restaurants reviewed and there is no connection between reviews and restaurant advertising. Hobbs welcomes food and wine news, comments and suggestions at nhobbs@xmission.com
Souper!Salad!
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