By Emily K. Alhadeff, Assistant Editor, JTNews
Just a week after Seattle Weekly’s Hanna Raskin gave Stopsky’s Delicatessen a rating of two sinkers, calling it “a vortex of discombobulation and disappointment,” friends of the recently opened Mercer Island deli packed into its bright, clean quarters to find the community’s best matzoh ball soup.
Servers passed around finger foods while Stopsky’s cooks doled out servings of soup to a panel of five judges: Lisa Kranseler, Lisa Porad, Judy Chase, Dan Brawer and Beth Alhadeff (who — full disclosure — is my nana-in-law).
Admittedly, the place was discombobulated, though in a nice way. Some ordered sit-down meals, others wandered around with a nosh and a glass of wine. Children clamored over the partition to watch as each soup came out, which was done without much formality. If one thing was clear, it was that everyone was having fun.
The matzoh-ball arbiters confessed they had little experience in the field — besides really liking matzoh ball soup, that is.
“I’ve had a lot of matzoh ball soup in my life,” Chase said.
“I’ve always thought my mom’s is the best,” Brawer said. “None of them so far have been better than my mom’s though.”
As the judges slurped on soup number four or five, they looked disappointed. Was it the beginning of a carbohydrate coma?
“It has not been that tough,” said Kranseler about the judging process. “None so far have knocked our socks off.”
“They’re not fluffy enough,” lamented my nana.
Shane Robinson, Stopsky’s lead chef since the departure of Robin Leventhal, explained what he looks for in a matzoh ball.
“I look for a floater. I want it to almost fall apart,” he said.
Robinson uses a roasted chicken broth, and he says Stopsky’s sells somewhere between 20 and 40 bowls of the Jewish penicillin a day. Robinson entered his own soup into the running — in keeping with the Stopsky’s theme of “tradition, updated,” his soup came flecked with thinly sliced mushrooms and a drizzle of truffle oil.
But when it came time to determine the winner, tradition in its purest sense took the gold. The matzoh ball to be named Stopsky’s official went to Paul Sommer, who has been making this version of the classic for ages. Credit, however, goes to his grandmother, born in 1896. The secret? “Tasting things when you’re cooking!” he said.
“It was just perfect,” Chase gushed to Sommer afterwards. It was fluffy, and the broth wasn’t too salty.
“You wowed us all,” she said.
“That was the matzoh ball I remember as a child,” said Kranseler. “We were waiting for the traditional matzoh ball.”
