One Great Plate: Venezuelan Chicken Soup

No one likes working on cold winter days, but it seems needlessly cruel to ask a freelancer such to shut off the Reba re-runs, bathe, dress and trudge into the city just to review a bowl of chicken soup.With my winter warmest weighing me down, I felt tired just walking to the subway and could swear I felt a scratch in my throat while waiting on the elevated platform.With visions of a sniffly and sickly 2009 dancing in my head, I grumpily entered the West Village’s Pasita, wondering exactly why I was going to a pizza place to eat soup.

Open since September 2006, the restaurant offers Venezuelan small plates and brick-oven pizzas.The restaurant’s unassuming, rustic décor is a salute to owner Joel Zighelboim’s grandfather, a man who immigrated to South America from France, eventually becoming a wine producer.This supposedly fantastic soup was only recently added to both the lunch and dinner menus.

After being greeted by Zighelboim, I took a seat and sipped one of the establishment’s hearty Venezuelan coffees while waiting for my broth. And then I waited some more. I could feel the grinchiness invading my body to the core, as I wondered what about pouring soup into a bowl could take so long. All was explained soon enough, when Zighelboim appeared carrying a steaming bowl in one hand and a plate of flat bread in the other. Setting them down, he offered, “We make this to order.There’s no vat of chicken soup sitting in the back, so it takes some time.”

As I slurped, he said, “Our cook is from Venezuela, and this is her own recipe, so it’s about as authentic and home-cooked as it gets.” Authenticity, in this case, involves traditional ingredients such as a round of corn on the cob, cilantro and starchy vegetables like yucca and yautia (a close cousin of taro).The root vegetables give the broth a nice depth of flavor as well as a perky sweetness that plays nicely with the zesty brightness of the cilantro. I was so taken with the soup that I was neglecting the seasoned flatbread, which proved to be redolent with herbs and baked in a pizza oven that provided both literal and visual warmth to the dining area.

As I headed back home, I was struck with the realization that the grumpiness and achiness that had pervaded my body to the bone had disappeared, replaced with a coffee buzz and a homey warmth. The city no longer seemed as cold, and the day didn’t seem so dreary.What more can you ask of a bowl of chicken soup?

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Pasita
47 8th Ave. (at W. 4th St.), 212-255-3900, pasitanyc.com