It occurred to me recently that my love of soup likely began with trips to a Chinese food restaurant in West Lebanon, NH as a kid. Of note, we very rarely ate out when I was growing up, but when we did it was often to a place called Pagoda in one of the 3 strip malls in 'West Leb'. I can picture the place vividly (it has been closed for many years), the crispy wonton chips and sugary red dipping sauce, and their soups-- either egg drop or hot and Sour (I think they must have had a wonton soup too, but I never got it). Ever since I've enjoyed egg drop at restaurant (hot and sour oftentimes has meat in it so I can't enjoy it at restaurants these days).
I found several egg drop soup recipes and settled on this one to try. I couldn't readily find a hot and sour that didn't have pork or that otherwise spoke to me, so I decided to try this Spicy Korean Tofu Soup (that had hot and sour-like ingredients, including shiitakes that I love). I recognize that conflating a Korean dish with a Chinese-restaurant classic is problematic so want to be clear that the Korean soup was not a hot and sour or intended to be the same.
Ultimately neither recipe brought me back to Pagoda nor wowed me otherwise. That said, the egg drop has potential-- I think that I need to practice my egg swirling skills to get the right 'ribbons'. I also added some frozen peas and think this was a nice addition but might play with the recipe a bit more. The Spicy Korean was fine – just nothing special/worth remaking.
