Tim Horton's - French Onion Soup

I've been wanting to try Tim Horton's french onion soup for the longest time.  I never understood how some restaurants sleep at night knowing they charge upwards of $10 for a bowl of soup.

I honestly didn't have great expectations when I heard that a fast food style place was going to serve french onion soup.  It doesn't seem right without the crusty baked cheese on top, the bread with the crispy edges but the soupy middle...it makes me miss my mom's when she made them in the little bowls with the thick handles.  *sigh* Food that makes me feel nostalgic always have a soft spot in my heart.

After trying the Timmy's version, I can say that it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for either.  I had to rush back to the office, so I'm not sure if it would taste better had I been in-store.  When you take the lid off, the soup's appearance doesn't scream french onion.  It's a dark brown broth with cubes of bread floating on top.  My initial reaction was "where's the cheese??"  I'm not a huge fan of cheese, but you need it in this soup!  I stirred it around and found a puddle of cheese curds on the bottom of the bowl and a few onions.  The soup itself wasn't very hot - again, not sure if the 4 minute drive back to my office cooled it significantly, but I'm giving Tim's the benefit of the doubt.

Initial impression: it smells like french onion soup and it kind of looks unappetizing because of the odd shade of brown with no cheese on top, but the taste is decent.  It's not as watered down as I've found the majority of their soups, and there's a nice onion flavour.  The only problem with that statement is that there really weren't enough onions in the soup.  So either I got ladled a bowl from the top of the pot and the onions were at the bottom, or there are a lot of different "onion" flavoured seasonings in that broth.  I don't know if I'd classify it as a true french onion soup.  Perhaps a more accurate description would be a french onion-style consumme.

I would buy it again if I really craved the french onion soup taste, but didn't want to pay a lot of money. Or if I didn't feel like a lot of chewing.