CONTRIBUTED BY MARY RICHARDSON

Plenty of soup for you fellow islanders! Okinawa has its own restaurant now devoted entirely to this comforting favorite food.  We checked out the Detox Soup Café this past weekend. Here’s what we found.

Every day, the café serves a variety of healthy tasty soups. On the day we visited, flavors included spinach, spicy curry, sweet corn, clam chowder, beni-imo, cheese fondue, minestrone, borcht, veggie, and hot kimchi soup.

There are placards lined up on the front countertop when you walk in, so that you can see pictures of that day’s offerings. The signs do list calorie counts, in the case you are serious about watching calories or losing weight.

To go with the soups, they serve 7 kinds of bagels made from rice flour including sesame, brown sugar, and pine nut among other flavors. The cream cheese flavors looked really interesting, with flavors like mango, blueberry, and shikuwasa.

Everything can be ordered a la carte. But there are also featured lunch specials.

The Bagel Sandwich and Soup Set includes a bowl of soup, bagel sandwich of your choice (ham and cheese, salmon, chicken, or BLT), and a drink for 880 yen (medium) and 980 yen (large).  The Rice Bowl Set includes Loco Moco, Grilled Chicken & Egg, or Taco Bowl for 880 yen.  The Soup Gratin Set offers a choice of vegetable mushroom, tomato, or curry gratin with bagel toast, and salad for 980 yen.

We ordered the Bagel Sandwich lunch sets with Popeye Energy (spinach) soup and the Spicy Curry.  We both enjoyed our soups, though the curry was actually not that spicy. The spinach soup was topped with something creamy, which tasted like yogurt or sour cream but I couldn’t be sure. 

For sandwich fillings, we ordered chicken and the ham and cheese. Both were tasty, though I would have liked the bagel to be more crunchy on the outside. It might be that because the bagels are made with rice flour rather than traditional flour, the texture of the bread is different. Or it could be that they steam the bagels rather than toasting them.

We noticed quite a few patrons eating the gratin sets, which looked delicious, and next time we’ll opt for that as well as the lovely lavender beni imo soup.

Paper menus list calorie counts for every food item, making the Detox Soup Café a convenient spot for health conscious diners.

Hours: 8:00 am – 10:00 pm 

Payment: Yen only

Directions: The Detox Soup Café is located between route 23 and route 24, near KAB. From Camp Foster, go 58 North and turn right on the 23 going East. Heading in the direction towards Gate 2 street, you’ll see a Pachinko parlor on the right side across from KAB Gate 5. Turn right here before the Pachinko building. (If you come to the 85 cross street, you’ve gone too far.) Go straight past Kanehide, Mr Donut, Tsutaya and the A-Price. Detox Soup Café is just past A-Price on the left side of the street. Parking is available in front.

Marc, a reader, added that a second Detox Soup Cafe – Soup On' is located in the Omoromachi district of Naha City, in the Shintoshin new Naha City area.Address: 那覇市おもろまち4-11-36   Map Coordinates:  26.227479, 127.698646   Tel: 098-963-6750    Closed the 2nd Monday of each month.