Café Soup’Herbe

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I've been to this place more than I can count. It's a quaint little vegetarian restaurant in Chelsea that is the perfect spot to stop in for a bite after either hiking, biking, kayaking, or whatever your fancy when in the Gatineau Hills. It's usually my incentive to go do one of the above. Today, I went road riding, and Café Soup'Herbe was my destination. The first thing I do when I arrive is check what the soup of the day is. I'm always hoping it will either be Hungarian Mushroom Soup or Peanut Soup. Both are my favorite but they don't make it enough. Today was Cream of Spinach. No matter which soup you order here, you can't go wrong. They are all amazing. The cream of spinach was just the right consistency, not too thick and had lots of flavor. They also bring whole grain rolls to the table which are always fresh. If you go for breakfast, instead of rolls they bring you a warm cinnamon roll, which I would go for breakfast just to get that. For my main I had the Asparagus and Artichoke Heart Tartelette made with cheese, eggs and pecan with a zesty orange flavor. Basically it was quiche, with a light golden crust. You could barely taste the orange zest, in fact, I forgot about it until I read it in my Restaurant Notes book, and once I remembered and thought about it, I could taste it. My mother in law gave me a notebook specifically for taking notes at restaurants. I like it because I concentrate a little more on my food while i'm eating it so that I can think of new things to say. I think i'll need to get a culinary dictionary to get some more words into my vocabulary though – awesome, amazing and delicious are getting old. With almost every meal they serve you a mesclun mix salad with a delicious homemade vinaigrette and thinly slivered carrots, almost vermicelli-like. I tried to order the Three-fruit Crumble with ice cream but they were out of ice cream and their espresso machine was also broken, so I skipped dessert. The service here is good. My server today was especially friendly and i've never been disappointed with a meal here. The prices are good, my soup and tartelette with water came to $22.24 with tax. But everything is fresh and obviously worth it since I do come often.

Café Soup’Herbe