Soup-erior South Side

I've always known about the South Side. Who doesn't? It's a bar-hopper's heaven.

But yesterday, I saw a different side to the South Side. Yesterday, I was introduced to the soup side.

The South Side is ground zero for the Mid-Winter Soup Contest, held annually in the desperate cold of February, which of course, is a perfect time for soup.

The soup contest is basically a bar crawl, but with soup. Yesterday, my fellow soup-lovers (I'm guessing more than 1,000 of them) and I walked up and down East Carson Street and few streets in between to sample the best soups, chowders and bisques the restaurants of the South Side could whip up.

I had some amazing soup, let me tell ya, and I even found a few new favorites (namely, the pasta fagiolo from Dish Osteria and the szekely gulyas from the Gypsy Cafe). It was fabulous, and even better, it was a fund-raiser to benefit the Brashear Association Food Pantry. For $5 and a canned good, you were free to soup-hop for most of the afternoon. (I gave them a can of soup. It seemed appropriate. Or maybe it was ironic.)

For me, the really eye-opening part were the places where the various soups were being handed out. The restaurants were partnered up with different retailers in the South Side, so instead of going to the participating restaurant to get soup samples, we went to various shops and galleries.

I discovered there is so much more to the South Side than just awesome bars. There's also awesome shopping and awesome restaurants with awesome soup.

I fully intend to go back. No, I must go back. I love the daytime version of the South Side, and I especially love that I live so close to it. (I'm from a small town. I'm still getting used to the fact that there's stuff to do.)

But honestly, I'll probably wait until the weather is warmer to further explore the South Side. Or maybe I'll just get my new favorite soup to go.





P.S. Future soup contest participants, a quick word of advice.
If you intend to check out future Mid-Winter Soup Contests, I would suggest pre-registering online. They ran out of admission bracelets when I tried to give them my $5 and canned good, so I was sneaking around sampling soup like a thief, although I did give them my canned good and I later donated the $5 online to the Brashear Association. So I made good on my soup thievery.

Also, start early. They ran out of soup pretty quickly at some places.

I also have yet to hear who actually won the contest.  I've been checking into it and will get back to you.