French Onion Soup Page

This restaurant is located in the Westin City Center.  The broth and cheese are good, but the odd shape of the “bowl” dictates that the cheese to soup ratio cannot meet the bar.

Rating 6.5 out of 10

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Great cheese was wasted on this bland, uninspiring soup.  I had very high hopes, especially after tasting the excellent gruyere.  But the soup had no trace of caramelization, no trace of sherry, or anything else other than hot water that had a slight onion flavor.  This one avoided a “Poor” rating, solely due to the excellent cheese.

Rating: 5.0 out of 10

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I had really high hopes for this soup.  The menu is nearly a carbon copy of Artisanal, which (of course) has the #1-rated French Onion Soup in the world.  However, for some reason the cheese and broth were both bland.  They use “imported” emmentaler, gruyere, and comté.  I was really disappointed, but mostly because of my expectations.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

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Sorry about the lighting.  This soup’s broth was much better than expected.  The onions were nicely caramelized, and there was the right amount of sherry.   Unfortunately, the cheese was tasted like a very cheap swiss.  The richness of the broth was ruined by the crappy cheese.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

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I remember the old “Hamburger Hamlets” in Westwood, Beverly Hills, and West LA, and their amazing F.O.S.  New owner, slightly different name, and it’s just not the same.  Pretty good, but not the same.  Seems like the same combination of cheese that I couldn’t quite identify back then, but now I would say is gruyere and jack.Rating: 7.0 out of 10

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The overpowering taste of parmesean ruins this soup.  There’s emmentaler in there somewhere, but I would never have known.  The broth was decent.

Rating 6.5 out of 10

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Located at the Fairmont in Banff Springs, Alberta, this German take on the French classic is interesting.  The cheese was absolutely delicious (combination of gruyere and emmentaler, just like in their fondue).  However, there was very little of it, as it was cut to fit the shape of the piece of bread.  The broth was also delicious, and very meaty.  It suffered the same problem, as there was only around a millimetre of it (that’s Canadian for “millimeter”, which is also Canadian for “very little”).  The bread you see in the picture is not floating.  You could really only get around 5 or 6 spoonfuls of broth.  Excellent ingredients, though!

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

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The soup was a bit bland, and the cheese was a bit too stuck on the bread.  It was good cheese, however.

Rating: 6.75 out of 10

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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

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

Rating 7.0 out of 10

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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

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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

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

Rating: 7 out of 10

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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

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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

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