It’s another weekend that the boy ditched us. They would rather stay home and make their own lunch.

Without the boys, we decided to drive further for lunch. The boys always protest when we tell them we will look for a place to eat outside of Richmond. Ben drove along Victoria Dr. which has a lot of restaurants. We decided to try The Soup House as the weather is getting colder these days.

We were greeted by a huge soup pot at the entrance.

We were there before noon and the place was packed in no time.

We ordered a Herbal Chicken Soup to share. It came in a small clay soup pot. I think it is meant for single serving. It is $5.95. It’s a clear soup with clean tasting. I supposed they used old chicken to make the soup because the meat was really tough.

They also served a complementary daily soup with 2 appetizers of pickled daikon and carrot and seed weed.

The free daily soup has carrot and winter melon. On the left was the Chinese herbs in the Herbal Chicken Soup.

Another specialty of The Soup House is Quilin Style Vermicelli. So, we ordered one to try. We opted for the choice of three toppings for $8.95. We picked pork stomach, beef tendon and roast duck. However, the server must have mistaken the beef tendon with beef tongue which is next to one another on the menu.

The Guilin style vermicelli is thicker than regular vermicelli and almost like “lai fern”. We like the fried soy bean which gives some crunch to the noodle. The best meat is the roast duck which was not over cooked. It is still slightly pink.

The star of the dish that we ordered today was the Clay Pot Rice which was popular here as many tables order it. They have a lot of choices, 32 in all. We ordered the Pork Jowl and Salted Shrimp Sauce clay pot rice as it is one of the photo featured on their menu. It is $8.95.

Even the soy sauce on the table was the sweet version, commonly used for clay pot rice.

The pork jowl has a crunchy texture and there were generous amount of it.

We loved the crust which is just perfect. It is not burnt to blackish.

We will certainly return to try other version of clay pot rice and the roast duck.

The Soup House accepts cash only.

You can click on the menu to have a larger view. Check out the clay pot rice section. They even have some top with cheese.