Pronunciation?

Souplantation, 21309 Hawthorne, Torrance, CA 310-540-4998

I have no idea whether it's "Soup-lantation" or "Sou-plantation" but either way it's a pretty silly name. Misleading, too -- I thought there would be a tasting menu of say, three small bowls of soup.

Hah! It's a buffet with salad, pasta, pizza, breads (foccaccia, blueberry and bran muffins, baguette chunks) and machine ice cream. And four soup choices. Plus "Add a scoop of dressing (as in turkey dressing) to your bowl of soup!" Do what?

Richie made himself a mixed salad, then had a bowl of clam chowder - "Okay, but I've had better," a helping of Cajun Sausage Pasta "Not that hot." He reported that the dressing, eaten solo, was "glue-y." The minestrone was "thin." He did approve of the machine ice cream - soft-serve? I forget the technical name for it, but you pull a lever down and your dish fills up with "ice cream." He treated himself to two bowls' full.

I had a taste of the Caesar salad, some green peppers with a dab of blue cheese dressing, some red onion slices with a bit of roasted garlic dressing and tossed some hardboiled egg chunks in as well. I tried their chili -- sweet and Horrors! it had canned tomatoes in it! I ate the top off of a slice of four cheese pizza, served in a rectangle about 4 in. long by 2 in. wide. The garlic bread was much better. The one thing that they got absolutely right was macaroni and cheese.

When I discovered that they had butterscotch in addition to chocolate sauce for the ice cream, I had two servings of it -- vanilla first with Oreo bits and then chocolate with toasted coconut.

Lunch was $7.50 per person (water only) It's a nice enough set of rooms, the most attractive asset is the glass ceiling atrium over the main dining room. I'd rate the food as a couple of cuts above Home Buffet (which is ghastly -- bad high school cafeteria food) and certainly a bargain in these times. Souplantation(s) are a chain which explains a lot of things, but I must say the help was on the job, busy replacing buffet items, putting out trays of bread and all of them were very friendly.