As the “chilly” winter island weather continues to be conducive for body and soul warming comfort foods, this time I had da’ “onos” (craving) for Portuguese Bean Soup.
Yeah, all you mainland folks who just read that are probably ROFL’ing at just the thought of me saying Hawaii’s weather is EVER “chilly”. This, when temperatures in Honolulu are currently in the low 80s in the day and 60s at night, while readers just on this blog alone have reported recent temperatures in San Francisco in the 20s and Montana in the SUB-20s! B-B-BRRRRRRR!
Well hey, making the most of whatever it is we consider “winter” here in Hawaii, I’m taking advantage of it at the dining table with another Zippy’s favorite, their Portuguese Bean Soup. This being hot off the heels of my recent post on their also excellent cold weather dish, the Zip Min.
While I gotta’ admit I can make a mighty fine pot of Portuguese Bean Soup myself, when it comes to what you can get from a restaurant, Zippy’s example of the dish is as good as it gets, and best of all, I don’t have to cook! Their Portuguese Bean Soup is EXCELLENT in my opinion, and I’m sure one of their best selling dishes, regardless of the weather outside.
It has just the right amount of thickness, almost on the verge of being considered a stew, yet thin enough to slurp every last drop off your spoon. Best part is this hearty soup is loaded with plenty of the good stuff…
In that photo where I transferred the Zippy’s PBS into a porcelain saimin bowl, you can see spooned up slices of Portuguese Sausage, Macaroni, Kidney Beans and diced potato. There’s also sliced celery and cabbage in it. Floating at the surface is a chunk of super-tender and savory good smoked ham hock meat, which is the true GOLD in the bowl, where depending on your luck in how the cook ladled your order, sometimes there’s huge chunks of it. Yum-num-num-num.
Speaking of smoked ham hocks, you can really taste that as the main essence of the soup broth, which is what truly defines a great bowl of PBS. The tomato sauce part of the broth is also well-balanced and in perfect harmony with the flavor imparted by the smoked ham hocks. There’s also a little spicy bite to it, like they add either tobasco or ceyenne pepper. It’s very subtle, but there.
Deviating for a moment, Notice in the first photo that by default they serve it with Diamond Soda Crackers, which is my number one favorite cracker. I always keep a big Costco-sized box in my pantry. I like these individually-wrapped ones even better, as they’re a little more crispy than the ones in the bulk-sized box bag…
Gotta’ say though, the Sky Flakes Crackers imported from the Philippines give Diamond Soda Crackers a run for the money. Good stuff. Both make EXCELLENT soup crackers.
With that, when eating soup, I like to roughly crumble up the soda cracker then sprinkle it on the surface of the soup like this…
I do this one cracker at a time so that it stays crispy as I grab each spoonful of soup along with some of the crumbled crackers. After I finish one cracker’s worth, then I crumble another cracker, and another cracker, right down to the last drop of soup. So ono like that.
Some of you folks might like doing it this way, where you place the thick soup and its goodies ON the cracker….
That works too, but I like the crumbled-cracker-in-the-bowl method better, as the broken edges allows it to partially soak up the broth, giving the cracker this wonderful dual soggy-meets-crunchy texture.
Bet you never thought the simplest of things in life such as eating soup could get so deep in thought, did you? Or, I’m just weird like that. lol
If crackers aren’t your thing, Zippy’s dine-in restaurant offers a Portuguese Bean Soup Meal, which includes a side dish of two scoops rice and one scoop mac’ salad…
You can also substitute crackers for rice at the takeout counter, which they place the rice under the soup, just like the chili rice bowl.
Zippy’s also sells their Portuguese Bean Soup in the freezer section at the grocery store, alongside their famous chili. Like the batches served at all their restaurants, these, along with many of their other menu items are centrally prepared at Zippy’s processing plant in Waipio, next door to their restaurant.
What? Zippy’s Portuguese Bean Soup
Where did you buy it and how much did it cost? Nimitz Zippy’s, $3.25 for large take0ut bowl.
Big Shaka to: In contention of winning Hawaii’s Best Portuguese Bean Soup from a Restaurant award. Generous helping of goodies, including Portuguese Sausage, smoked hamhock meat, tender kidney beans, diced potatoes, celery and cabbage. Nice and thick viscosity. Nailed it on the broth flavor.
No shaka to: Spilling soup on my shirt. Arctic blasts.
SPAM Musubi rating: 5
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