The weather has put me in a tortilla soup mood. The best I’ve had was in the El Paso airport Hilton, maybe because it was 3 pm and I hadn’t eaten all day and was starving. But it was really delicious with a flavorful broth and fresh avocados. I had this Lopez version today which is also very good, with a nice broth but more shredded chicken than I can eat. I’ve had some terrible ones made with dark, thick roux. Can anyone recommend a brothy version?
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I can’t help I’m afraid. While I love soups of all kinds, I don’t think I have ever had a bowl of Tortilla Soup that made me go “Wow”, and as you know, I’m pretty easy to please food-wise. I’ll be watching for more helpful replies.
Promoting the dreaded " thread drift", I made gumbo this morning from the last of the T-giving turkey and ham. We had Goode Company smoke our turkey and I have to tell you, it came out great. Very moist. We’ll probably do that again.
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That sounds really delicious. We got our turkey and sides from Jonathan’s The Rub this year and the turkey was fried. It was pretty darn good. The first year I haven’t cooked but I’m still recovering from knee surgery.
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Echoing @NotDoobieWah here, although that Lopez bowl does look good. All those vegetables? Seldom order but don’t believe I’ve ever seen a version with that much vegetation. Gumbo, Ramen, Noodle soups - yum!! I put tortilla strips in a spicy black-eyed pea soup for NY’s day, sometimes in a cup of broth in the evening.
Bought a smoked turkey leg – didn’t get into until yesterday. Had an HEB old world frankfurter/hot dog on T-day. Then went back to bed for most of the day. Oh, and HEB Almond and Pecan Treasures cookies - their version of pecan sandies.
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Oh wow, pecan sandies are really nostalgic for me, I haven’t had one in a very long time. All the vegetables you see on the soup is all there was, they all floated. But underneath was a large amount of that shredded chicken.
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I am sure it is long gone and not even remembered, but over thirty years ago the Remington made by far the best broth style tortilla soup I have ever had. Whenever I could I picked it for business lunches because of that soup.
Me neither. Thought of them recently and been keeping them on hand ever since. HEB almond and pecan are my favorites. They are very, very crumbly, which I like. Keebler brags about Real Madagascar Vanilla and they’re really Vanilla Sandies 
, which is ok if that’s what you want.
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Where was it? Know who the owner/chef was?
It was just a few blocks inside the loop between Westheimer and San Felipe.
Thanks. No, I was thinking it was downtown.
There’s a Remington bar inside the Saint Regis hotel in that area. I used to go to a Christmas party every year at the Junior League next door and then everyone would retire to that bar. They do serve food including soups.
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I think it’s the St. Regis now. IMO the best downtown hotel dining was the Meridien.
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Now ya got me interested! I wondered if it’s a Mexican dish or Tex-Mex and went looking. Homesick Texan has a little history. I know I’ve seen Sopa de Azteca on menus - is that what Lopez call’s theirs? I think I would definitely want some dark meat.
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Mercifully, tortilla soup the way I like it is very easy. Season some light chicken broth with cumin and chili powder. Add cubed avocado, a bit of boiled chicken, cubed, crumble a bit of queso fresco over it, and sprinkle it with tortilla strips, cut and pan fried until crisp. Add a squirt of lime if you like.
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It’s tortilla soup on the menu. Lopez is pure Tex-Mex.
Yeah. I looked it up. It was the Aztec Salad I was remembering.
BTW, at an Indian or Pakistani grocery, get some Salted Jeera Cookies/Biscuits, i.e., cumin flavored sandies!
@Vecchiouomo - thank you very much. You are a treasure!
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@Lambowner - I’ve been looking at menus and pics online, haven’t found any. I keep getting distracted by pics of gumbo!
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Went to Lopez this week with a friend from midtown I hadn’t seen in months. He’s always willing to come all the way out here to Lopez. I wasn’t very hungry so just ordered the Tortilla soup, thinking I could get something else to take home for later. I couldn’t/didn’t want to finish the soup. Broth much lighter than @Lambowner’s picture above, about as much (very soft) cheese as avocado and chips on the side, but just tasteless. Oh, and a huge, seemingly never-ending quantity of nothing but white meat shredded chicken. And all those carrots? ???
Now I know I’ve had some interesting tortilla soup somewhere in the past but can’t place the memory so I’ve decided to make my own - with, uh, a few substitutions. I’m gonna use beef. And not ground beef. And soft, unfried flour tortillas, which I put in the black-eyed peas soup mentioned above.
Re: the Lopez leftovers - I added about 2 tsp of Valentina hot sauce (which in the case of my bottle has turned into a paste) to less than a half cup of the restaurant leftovers. It helped tremendously. At the resto, I had added about half a cup of their salsa but it didn’t help much.
Will report back.
BTW - what’s happened to @NotDoobieWah? Hasn’t posted in months>
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I remember that the Lopez version was as good as I’ve had in Houston, but way too much chicken. I haven’t found anything better since, but I haven’t ordered the Lopez version again. I tried the Los Tios version sometime in the past year, and it was inedible, super bad.
As to @NotDoobieWah, I think he has ghosted us. The ever dwindling Houston section.
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He disappeared rather suddenly - leaving a question from our short-term contributor Tex hanging.
I’ve come up with a chicken version for Tortilla soup - chicken fajita pieces? or chunks of chicken (white and dark). I am tired of shredded chicken meat!
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