Ex-Momofuku cook is selling his soup in Toronto with some hilariously lo-fi comic strips
Soup made by an ex-Momofuku cook is now available in Toronto, and he's drawing comics to help sell it.
Check out Soup Dealer and you'll find photos of rotating soups available for pickup, say, minty pea, loaded potato, goulash or French onion. But what you'll also find are drawings that depict our heroic "soup dealer" as a guy with baggy eyes, a toque and a shirt that says "legalize soup."
In the one-panel comics, he has conversations with everyone from your average soup lover to an onion, a pickle and even Bane from Batman.
The soup dealer himself is Ricky Rosenbaum, who cut his teeth in the culinary world by working at Momofuku from 2015 to 2019, where after two years he became the Hot Commissary prep cook responsible for making all the ramen stock for Momofuku's Noodle Bar.
"I was put in charge of these fantastic monstrous kettles and made boatloads of broth every day," Rosenbaum tells blogTO.
In 2019, he left Momofuku to pursue interests in theatre and stand-up comedy. Sadly, when the pandemic hit the play he was in was cancelled and the clubs and bars where he'd perform closed.
"I got very bored," Rosenbaum says. "I wanted something that I could do from home to keep me busy and creative. I was making lots of soup, and I figured with all my experience I could come up with some cool recipes for stuff that's not normally sold in stores, so people can get some real fancy soups without the fancy restaurants."
"The idea was to make high-quality restaurant level soups and sell them for cheap with the business model of a pre-legalization weed dealer."
After getting a great response to his soups from friends and family, Rosenbaum started up Soup Dealer officially with an Instagram drawing of his soup dealer character as a creative outlet for his humour.
All soups are $15 with two options available per week, posted each Monday. Rosenbaum has also been making pickles with options like classic dill, sweet daikon and carrot, and plans to continue to add to his menu.
He takes orders Monday through Friday through Instagram DM, payment is through e-transfer and contactless pickups happen Saturday to Monday from Rosenbaum's porch in the St. Clair and Christie area.
"I've been getting tons of compliments on the flavours," he says, "and the comics too, despite how bad I am at drawing. I've got a growing bunch of very loyal people who really love the soups and come back every week and want to try everything, which is super tight. Almost everyone who buys once orders more the next week."
"It's also made me feel very connected to my neighbourhood, even more than pre-pandemic. I never used to talk much to my neighbours really, and then we all basically stopped interacting. But now I feel like I'm running this weird soup community that people are actually invested in, and that's a really cool feeling."
Soup Dealer
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