All the Soups at B&H Dairy, Ranked
One of the oldest and most venerated restaurants in the East Village is put to the test
When Abie Bergson and Jack Heller founded B&H Dairy in 1938 at 127 Second Avenue just south of St. Marks Place, there were many kosher dairy restaurants on the Lower East Side and the East Village. These restaurants offered a menu restricted to dairy products and fish, eschewing meat and poultry according to kosher law. Serving meat but no dairy, Second Avenue Deli across the street was its fleshy counterpart. Both were staple eateries of a theater district known as the Yiddish Broadway.
As other dairy restaurants like Ratner’s, Hymie’s, and Hammer’s disappeared, B&H persisted. It was partly because of the narrow space it occupied, with room only for a cramped lunch counter and row of small two-tops pressed against the wall, a layout that still forces patrons to do a weaving dance as they seek out a seat. The current owners are a married couple, Fawzy and Alexandra Abdelwahed, Egyptian and Polish, respectively.
Throughout its history, B&H has retained its spare kosher dairy menu, running to vegetarian omelets, salads, blintzes, and tuna melt sandwiches. But the heart of the menu has long been a series of soups jammed with vegetables, eight or so per day. Served with challah made on the premises (known in the local parlance as “holly bread”), these soups remain one of the neighborhood’s best budget meals, and a mainstay of vegans and dieters.
Diners usually home in on one soup ($6.50 cup, $7 bowl, $13 jumbo to go), and order it again and again. I recently decided to try all eight to see which was the best. Here they are in ranked order.
1. Lentil
This soup unexpectedly explodes with flavor, with chopped vegetables varying the terrain and the lentils remaining distinct and achieving a creamy quality. The surprise flavor is cumin, perhaps attesting to the Middle Eastern roots of one of the current owners.
2. Tomato
Though I’ve been an avid patron of B&H for decades, I wasn’t familiar with this, so I assume it’s a relative newcomer. Owing nothing to Campbell’s, the potage is a dark puree with a delightfully peppery flavor, buttressed with carrots and (eek!) noodles.
3. Vegetable
Vegetable soup has in the past been my regular choice at B&H, providing roughage and nutrition. It contains a maximum number of veggies, some absent from other soups, including green beans, cauliflower, and potatoes (selection varies). And it tastes great, too, a celebration of herbs and earthy flavors.
4. Borscht
This version of borscht defies expectations by not being thick and sweet. It is loaded with vegetables, making it seem like a full meal, yet it also has a rich flavor redolent of beets freshly pulled from the ground.
5. Lima Bean
Most people dislike lima beans, ones that are frozen and have a light green tint. These limas are different, presumably made from dried beans. The flavor is rich with garlic and dill, and this is the thickest of the soups at B&H, and thus the most sustaining on a wintry day.
6. Matzoh Ball
This staple of Eastern European Jewish cuisine usually sports a silky chicken stock, and this version has slipped pretty far down the list despite having a perfect bouncy and crumbly matzo ball and plenty of slippery noodles. It needs a shake of salt.
7. Mushroom Barley
It is often said that this is the best soup at B&H, and it is indeed good, but on this try, it seemed low on flavor due to a dearth of mushrooms. The barley was satisfying, however, and the soup goes well with the holly bread, which is a little sweet.
8. Split Pea
For those who appreciate the purity of the green split pea, with its reminder of summers past, this is not a bad choice. My problem is that it doesn’t seem like a meal, and the flavor is monovalent, missing some extra notes that might make you sit up and take notice.