3. Pho Ga Dakao

Like beef pho, chicken pho is made by boiling chicken bones and other assorted parts for hours on end to form a rich, fatty stock. To that, Pho Ga Dakao adds meat -- light or dark, your choice -- as well as buttery chicken skin and even organ meat if you're feeling adventurous. Chicken hearts and gizzards give the soup a complexity and tangy bite, but it's just as good with plain old breast meat, too. Doctor it up with lime juice, cilantro, mint or Sriracha to your liking, and you're left with a bowl of chicken soup that's as good for a cold as it is for enjoying on its own, rich, chicken-y merits.

2. El Rey Taqueria

You probably wouldn't know it to look at it, but this tiny Cuban/Mexican restaurant with a drive-thru offers up the best chicken tortilla soup in the city. Walk inside, though, and you'll see the chickens rotating on the old-fashioned rotisserie, some of which, we're certain, are the base of the stock that gives El Rey's soups its extraordinary depth of flavor. With the addition of tomatoes, chiles, chunks of chicken, corn, cheese and tortilla strips, you've got a soup that for sheer absolute deliciousness will stand up against the most elegant lobster bisque in town.

1. Tacos del Julio

Unlike a standard caldo de pollo or caldo xochitl, the caldo Tlalpeño at Tacos del Julio calls for the addition of a very important ingredient: chipotle chiles in adobo sauce. The dark red chiles come in a little plastic cup full of adobo, allowing you to flavor the broth as you see fit as stocky white squares of queso panela bob throughout the soup. The vegetables are similarly thick: ripe hunks of carrot, avocado and potato are barely covered by the broth in the bowl. Dosed with generous squirts of fresh lime, the caldo Tlalpeño is the kind of stuff that will fully reinvigorate you -- and for less than $4.