No Soup For You, Soup For UK, Wardorf Salad Bars For You!

Well, doesn't that take the biscuit! It appears the original “Soup Nazi”, New York chef Al Yeganeh, who has ran a well-known soup restaurant named Soup Kitchen International at 259-A West 55th Street in The Big Apple since 1984, whose character inspired the famous Stalin-mustached mogul that is the Soup Nazi named Yev Kasem (played by Larry David), who demanded that all customers in his restaurant follow his exact soup-ordering instructions word by word or face the blistering repudiation, “No soup for you!” on an episode of Seinfeld aired November 2, 1995 and now saturates syndicated television from local networks to TBS, who Cosmo Kramer’s inspiration Kenny Kramer argued that Yeganeh's nickname is unfair, and jokingly suggests his nickname be changed to Al, The Soup Rat Bastard because of indeed having a reputation of both serving great soups and rudely treating customers…….(rises up to the surface for air)…….is now prepared to divide and conquer the world, one nation at a time (ducks and covers)



Yes sir, the very man whose inspiration even inspired a category of its very own in a November 30, 2004 Seinfeld-themed Jeopardy! Episode which is the very episode that snapped Ken Jennings’ 74-time winning streak, is prepared to cross the pond and get quids in with his Original SoupMan franchise. So be prepared, Britons, as he will be charting the waters of each and every one of your canals within the next year, opening fifty new franchises in London, Manchester, Birmingham and every roundabout and zed bend in-between, offering not only one seafood, one vegetarian, one spicy Mexican chili, one clear both, several wild card soups and chilled in-season soups in every restaurant, but the rules as well! Dun-dun-dunnnnnnnnn! Ahhhhhhhhhh! Naaahhh, the directions are far more straight-forward and as plain as a pikestaff…..just make sure you pay attention, and remember Yeganeh’s Standing Order go as follows:



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1) Pick the soup you want.

2) Have your money ready.

3) Move to the extreme left after ordering.

4) If you want bread, crackers, or other condiments…order them with the soup.

5) Line must be single file.

6) No talking, kissing, hugging, etc. in the line. (Hey, now that I can’t accept, endorphiny is my creed……hey…..what are you doing to me.....no....NOT THE END OF THE LINE, ANYTHING BUT THE END OF THE LINE!!!!!)

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Perhaps I should just settle for some homemade chicken soup for the soul to save all the unnecessary effort! (giggles) But his ssssooouuppsss arrrreee sooooooo tttassssssstttyyyy! LOL! Anyway, good luck conforming to the creed of the Original Soup Man, mates! This experience may be as queer as a clockwork orange to the lot of you, but in the long term everyone will be much happier. No longer will you have to succumb to the salmonella of semolina, no longer will you have to sweep those rollmops under the rug, no longer will you be smacking on your black pudding Snack Packs, no longer will you go plotz on your plonk, and especially no longer will you be trippin’ upon chippies and mushy peas. Allow Mister Yeganeh to pull up a bollard for y’all and open all you rugger buggers to the chowder, bisque, vichyssoise and old Uncle Tom Cobley and all. I’m tellin’ you, he’s gonna put y’all over the moon, but please, oh please…..do not mention the war (I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it alright, heh heh heh!)



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Ahhhhhh yyyeeessss, speaking of the war....ooops, sorry sorry, I mean, that is to say.....on a related topic, the real-life locale of BBC’s cult classic comedy “Fawlty Towers”, Torquay’s Hotel Gleneagles, soon will no longer have herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plains, fire alarms that are not a semitone higher than the burglar alarms, all you-can-eat wardorf salad bars, and for the Chef De Jour a packet of sliced hippopotamus in suitcase sauce.



Yeppers, soon the Hotel Gleneagles will be standing out like chapel hatpegs, as it is preparing to undergo a huge luxurious facelift expensed at one million pounds (or $1.8 million dollars), including a new ground-level swimming pool and al fresco dining area, a conservatory, and a luxurious main lounge. In addition, the ceilings have been raised, Italian chandeliers have been installed everywhere, chairs have been imported from Holland, new carpets have been installed around every corridor, forty 40 skip-loads of rubbish have been removed, and all 41 bedrooms now boast balconies and half enjoy sea views, which a double room with breakfast now costs between 140 and 180 pounds…..all the very things Basil Fawlty could ever begin to pine for. The co-owner Brian Shone says the new management team is aiming for a "boutique style without the cold shivery-ness of some London boutique hotels". Ahhhhhh yes, and perhaps we should check to see if they’ve moved the hotel a lil’ bit to the left.



Despite being refurbished into a boutique hotel, not all the kippers and corpses of yesteryears will come to pass. There will be a selection of TV paraphernalia in the lobby, although everything else on the seven-acre facility will be free of talking moose heads, demented hotel managers that visit you in the small hours of the night and put bats up your nightdress and thrash their own cars with tree branches, senile Majors, and enormous savage rodents that answer to the name of Sybil (except of course for the fact that Prunella Scales, who played the force to be reckoned that was Sybil Fawlty on “Fawlty Towers” will officially open the revamped hotel on September 18th.)



“Fawlty Towers” was born after John Cleese and the rest of the Monty Python rat pack booked into the Gleneagles hotel during the 1970’s, which they said was then being currently ran by a bugger named Donald Sinclair and his wife Beatrice, who Donald was a naval officer when his wife acquired a private house on the English countryside and worked to turn it into a hotel, naming it Gleneagles to honor her Scottish heritage, which the real-life Gleneagles has long been far greater than the “Fawlty Towers” hotel. However, Cleese and others of the Monty Python crew have long mentioned that their experience with Donald Sinclair at Gleneagles was a most tumultuous one, being so ferocious that he would become the true-life embodiment of the Basil Fawlty character. He was especially known for going ballistic when watching them hold and use their forks and knives incorrectly, as well as throwing one of their briefcases over a wall because he mistook it for a time bomb.



Yep, due September 18th, they’ll have everything…..handbags…..knuckle-dusters…..flick-knives, sorry sorry, and they’ll no longer ever be out of Wardorfs! (giggles) So go on, get out on the tiles and get all cockahoop! Oh, and by the way, Manuel is enjoying a wonderful life back in Barcelona now, learning how to make a nice, hearty hammer sandwich and perfecting his acclaimed world-class ratatouille with his secret ingredient. You guessed it; lots and lots of basil! ;)



Blimey, I’ve talked too much here again! Now, if you excuse me, I’m gonna get me a room, with breakfast in bed: eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, Waldorf Salad, and all washed down with lashings of hot screwdriver! (giggles) Oh, wait, can I exchange the eggs, bacon and sausage for tofu, gluton and green curried rice?

XOXO,
Noah Eaton
(Mistletoe Angel)
(Emmanuel Endorphin)