French Onion Soup Page

Well, there’s not much good to say about this one.  The menu said it would have melted mozzarella cheese, and if I searched hard, I could find *something* that might have been mozzarella.

Rating: 2.5 out of 10

Having f.o.s. on the menu of an Italian restaurant brings me back to my old days in suburban New York.  As you can see from the photo, the gruyere is not melted very well.  The soup tasted reasonably good, but the cheese was bleh, and was all stuck to the bread.

Rating: 5.0 out of 10

According to folklore (actually, it was according to the waiter), they used to use a combination of gouda mixed with swiss.  “But at some point, we just said ‘forget it’, and went to only gouda.”  It was certainly interesting, but really not great.  The soup was bland, and gouda isn’t really a great melting cheese.  The cheese lay on the croutons in such a way that it was impossible to get a taste of it without the bread.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10

This one certainly came out looking ugly, but I was very pleasantly surprised!  Although the cheese was not cooked enough, it was very good gruyere.  Also, the broth was excellent, with well-caramelized onions, and a delightfully sweet taste.  The scallions were helpful, too.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Heh, I thought this place went out of business…apparently, someone bought the name and the locations, and opened them up as franchises.  It’s pretty much as I remember it growing up, with cheap provolone and bland soup.  A couple of extra points for nostalgia, though.

Rating 5.0 out of 10

Nothing special about this soup, topped with provolone.  It came out a bit on the cold side, so I sent it back.  They were nice enough to create an entirely new one, though I thought that unnecessary.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

I have a pretty strict rule about restaurants having to have F.O.S. on the menu, and if they don’t have it every day, I generally will find it ineligible for this blog.  However, Jeanty at Jack’s has had it on special every day for 9 months.  They promise that it will continue to be available for my readers.  The cheese was excellent; a combination of gruyere, fontina, and mozzarella.  The broth seemed a bit bland, and I believe the onions needed a little more time to caramelize.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

I escaped into this place just to get out of the snow.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had F.O.S.!  I guess the soup must have been calling to me.  The broth was really excellent, with perfectly caramelized onions, and a hint of sherry.  The cheese was a mix of swiss and parmesean.  The only complaints are that the bowl is a bit small (they have two sizes, and this is the larger size), and that there isn’t enough cheese.  This restaurant is located in the Arctic Club Hotel.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

I have been avoiding trying the French Onion Soup at Applebee’s for years.  I had heard that their version is a “diet” version, using fat free cheese, among other things.  I figured it would be horrible.  So, my mission here was to balance out my blog a bit, and bring the average down.  The time had come to sample this monstrosity.  What would the rating be, 2.0?  1.0?  I laughed maniacally, as I walked in.  I was shocked to learn that they actually have two versions of the soup: regular, and diet.  That was a surprise.  So, I ordered both.  See below for my review of the diet version.  The regular version was at least as good as other chain restaurant versions.  The cheese was a decent swiss, and the broth was tasty.  It could have used more cheese, however.

Rating: 6.0 out of 10

This is the “diet” version of the French Onion Soup that I had heard about.  You can see that the cheese looks different, but I couldn’t get any info out of the server as to what it was exactly.  I’ve heard from people that it’s “fat free”, and from others that it’s “low fat”.  In any case, it wasn’t as horrible as I was hoping it would be.  The broth is a special “low sodium” broth, but it definitely tasted salty to me.  Again, it was much better than I was hoping.  The “crouton” was described as a “low carb” crouton.  I couldn’t tell you the effect of that, as to me the only purpose of the crouton is to hold up the cheese.  My mission to Applebee’s was completely unsuccessful.  I did not bring down the average, and the French Onion Soups were adequate, including the diet one!

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

Nice, rich broth, and a decent amount of cheese.  Nothing outstanding, but no complaints.

Rating 7.0 out of 10

Sorry about the picture.  We tried moving candles around, but it didn’t help.  The broth was interesting, and used a veal stock.  The gruyere was quite good, and tasted expensive, but there was very little of it.  I would ask for extra cheese next time, and see how it goes.

Update: Thanks to Bob Peterson for fixing up the picture for me!

Rating: 6.0 out of 10

You may be wondering why there are two pictures above.  Well, the soup came out, and I immediately noticed that the broth was delicious.  I mean really delicious.  However, it was cold.  So, after sending back the soup, a new one was brought out.  Thus, the two different pictures.  I hadn’t tasted the cheese in the original soup (I like to drape hot soup over the cheese before tasting), and I was delighted at the quality of it in the second soup.  Unfortunately, the second soup’s broth was lacking the sweetness of the onions that the first had!  It’s a shame, because this soup could have made the top 10 if you combined the first and the second.  I intend to revisit, to give it another shot.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Great, tasty broth with a perfect blend of gruyere and emmenthaler.

Update: Thanks to Bob Peterson for fixing up the picture for me!

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

To start with, this may be the strangest presentation I’ve ever seen.  It was served with a traditional onion soup crock, but the soup was not in there!  Inside the crock was a smaller soup cup which contained the soup.  I suppose the vestigal crock was just there to keep people from touching the cup right out of the oven?  The presentation notwithstanding, the soup was horrible.  They boasted a vegetarian broth, and it was bland.  The cheese seemed to be a smoked provalone.

Rating: 3 out of 10

I should mention that the rest of the food and service was outstanding.  The soup, however, needs some work.  The cheap swiss was overcooked (as you can see from the photo), and the broth was quite bland.

Rating: 5 out of 10

This restaurant is located in the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas.  The menu shows the soup as only containing gruyere, but clearly there is another cheese involved.  The server couldn’t offer any help.  The broth was excellent, and the cheese plentiful.

Rating: 7 out of 10

A fine-tasting Internet recommendation.  The place is a small outdoor eating area in “The Farmer’s Market” in the fairfax district of LA.  The broth is quite tasty.  The cheese is straight swiss, as opposed to gruyere, but it is better than most swiss cheese I’ve had.  Note to fans: Prior to this entry, all of the photos have been taken with a Bang & Olufsen cell phone.  Even though the quality of the camera on the phone wasn’t great, it became a sort of tradition to me.  I have (at least temporarily) abandoned the B&O phone for the Google Android phone (T-Mobile G1), so this photo was shot with that device.  Sorry to all of the theonionsoup.com purists!

Rating: 7 out of 10

Similar cheese as what I had earlier in the evening, but the broth was much better.

Rating: 7 out of 10

This soup was recommended to me, and I remembered it being good when I tried it several years ago (before I had this blog).  It was good, but not as good as I recalled.  The Gruyere was not melted enough, and it tasted as if there may have been some parmesean mixed in.  The broth was not very tasty.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

For a restaurant that tries to be highly traditional French (right down to the over-the-top accents), the F.O.S. was highly non-traditional.  The cheese was a blend of provolone, mozzarella, and gruyere, with the provolone being the flavor that stood out.  The combination was actually pretty good, with the provolone being able to brown, and the mozarella adding some texture.  It would have been better if the gruyere stood out more, though.  The broth was not great.  Also unusual was the garnish on top, which was chives.

Rating: 7 out of 10

A very interesting Intenet recommendation!  As you may be able to tell from the photo (click on it for a larger picture), the soup is served in an actual onion.  Typically, I don’t enjoy the soups that are served in “bread bowls” (e.g. Panera Bread), but this one was quite good.  You may be able to make out the rock salt on which the onion with its soup in it was baked.  The salt remains extremely hot (so hot that you can easily get burned by trying to pick it up).  The only real problem with the soup is that the excess cheese runs down the onion and attaches itself to the rock salt.  It becomes very difficult to enjoy the excess cheese, since you can’t really separate it from the rock salt granuals.  You end up putting the cheese and 3 or 4 granuals in your mouth, which is painfully hot, and extremely salty.  It works really well to keep the soup and cheese hot, though.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Apart from all of the shrubbery in this soup, it was pretty decent.  The menu says “swiss and parmesan”, but I only tasted the swiss.

Rating: 6 out of 10

As I always do, I inquired about the type of cheese they use on the soup.  What followed was comical.  Our server responded, “Uh, mozzarella.”  Clearly, this was wrong (see the picture above).  So, I asked another passing server, and she said (more asuredly) “Mozzarella”.  So, I asked the manager, who asked the bartender (!) and he said, “Swiss.”  If anyone can find out what cheese is really on there (it’s not swiss), please let me know.  It was very good all around, but not nearly enough of whatever the cheese is.

Rating: 7 out of 10

A couple of hunks of provolone and immature broth.  Not served in a crock, this dish appears very out of place on the menu and in the restaurant which is a mostly German-themed place.

Rating 4.5 out of 10

Excellent quality of cheese and broth.  Great amount of gruyere and provolone, mixed with nicely caramelized onions with sherry and broth.  Very nicely done.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

More Indianapolis parmesan with gruyere, but the parmesan was not overwhelming this time.  Lots of cheese, and the broth was pretty good. 

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

The tour of Indianapolis F.O.S. begins at Shula’s, a high-end chain.  This one is located in the Westin Hotel in downtown Indianapolis.  The soup has an interesting mix of cheese, described to me as Gruyere, Provolone, Swiss, and Parmesan.  The parmesan was way, way overpowering.  I couldn’t really taste anything else about this soup.

Rating: 6.0 out of 10

Some people have mentioned that Trader Joe’s sells a pre-packaged french onion soup, so I decided to try it out and publish a study here (without rating it, since it is not at a restaurant).  The package is frozen, including the cheese and croutons, and it is placed in an oven-safe bowl, and then either baked for 45 minutes as-is, or microwaved for 7 minutes.  If you microwave it, you must then add your own cheese and put it in the oven for around 2 minutes.  I tried it both ways, and the baked one had better broth, but the microwaved version has the benefit of being able to choose your own cheese.  In any case, I wouldn’t recommend this unless you have no alternative.

Although the broth was a little weak, the cheese was plentiful (as you can see).  It was a combination of jarlsberg and mozzerella.  The jarlsberg was great, and the mozzerella added texture, but it wasn’t as good as the jarlsberg and gruyere at Mon Ami Gabi.

Rating 8.0 out of 10

This is an interesting place, as it used to be owned by a French family, but was taken over by a family from Taiwan.  They kept the strictly French menu, including the F.O.S.  They use a high quality swiss cheese, but the broth is rather bland.  Seems like a white wine base, with no sherry and an inadequate caramelization process.  Overall, it was enjoyable.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Cheap swiss and bland broth makes this one useful only in case of emergency.  Located at the Poplar Creek Golf Course.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10

Great broth and excellent combination of gruyere and parmesan cheese.  A bit heavy on the parmesan.  Well-presented in a square bowl, but no cheese over the side, which I know people often rely upon.

Rating: 8 out of 10

It was shocking enough to find F.O.S. on the menu of a chinese restaurant, but then when it came out with the pastry puff on top, which looked exactly like Papillon in Fremont, I was flabbergasted.  I’m now trying to figure out who copied from whom.  The two soups look too similar for it to be coincidence.  There were differences, however.  This one had only what tasted like mozzerella, and very little of it.  The broth was chicken stock, and really lacked in flavor.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Wonderful broth, and lots of excellent gruyere cheese makes this soup a winner.  The only thing I would consider changing is that there were more croutons than were necessary.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

I was not expecting to find F.O.S. at The Davenport Hotel when I checked in, but noticed it immediately as I was walking towards the elevator.  Even though I was between lunch and a big dinner party, I had to stop and order a bowl.  I hadn’t even read the description when I ordered it, but when I had my first taste, I was flabbergasted!  It was one of the best soups I’ve had.  The description reads:

Washington sweet onions caramelized with sherry in an herb broth topped with a crouton, melted Gruyère cheese & green onions

It really was delicious.  The sherry stood out, and it was really hard to believe it wasn’t a beef-based broth, as it was so incredibly tasty!  I hereby reverse my assumption that all vegetable broths don’t stand a chance.

Rating: 9.0 out of 10

Extra ratings points for lots and lots of cheese.  It’s a combination of provolone and swiss.  Broth was tasty.  Located in the Sheraton University Hotel.

Rating 6.5 out of 10

Decent soup with provolone.  Nothing special.

Rating 6 out of 10

This traditional greek-style diner has what I remember eating growing up in New York.  It’s “comfortable” onion soup, while not French traditional.  Provolone cheese, nice and browned, and salty soup.  One of the top of the pedestrian soups.  This particular diner is the place that has become a regular stop for folks travelling from the NYC metropolitan area on their way to some of the upstate colleges (Cornell, Syracuse, Binghamton, etc.)

Rating: 6.75 out of 10

Great Internet recommendation.  Broth was decent and the cheese was very good.  The server claimed it was “just Swiss”, but I think it was gruyere.  Seemed like everyone there was having the F.O.S.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10