Sun, Apr 21, 2024 page3

• FEATURE: Xiaolongbao more popular than ever in Manhattan

  • Bloomberg
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  Across Manhattan, diners are picking up their soup spoons and chopsticks and biting (ever so carefully) into the city’s hottest order.

  Xiaolongbao (小籠包), also known as steamed soup dumpling, is a dim sum classic, traditionally with ground pork and/or crab or — increasingly and unconventionally — with options such as matzo balls, in a little pool of molten broth within a pleated dumpling wrapper. An enduring staple of food halls in Queens and storefronts in Brooklyn, they are also nothing new to Manhattanites. Joe’s Shanghai has been steaming them in Chinatown since 1995; more recently, places including Pinch Chinese in Soho have presented exemplary versions.

  However, in the past 12 months the borough’s soup dumpling faucet has been turned on full blast, from the East Village to the Upper West Side.

  

  A "xiaolongbao" sits in a spoon at a Din Tai Fung restaurant in an undated photograph.

  Photo courtesy of Din Tai Fung via Bloomberg

  In Midtown, Long Island Dumplings opened behind an anonymous storefront on Sixth Avenue in December last year. Chef and owner Jason Lee, who opened the place as an offshoot of his popular Long Island Pekin in Babylon, New York, specializes in serving plump, wobbly pork and crab options, both fortified with bone broth. He also offers a more atypical vegan truffle soup dumpling, made with fresh and dried mushrooms and a potato base.

  On upper Broadway, at 101st Street, the homemade steamed pork soup dumplings at Moon Kee have been a bestseller since the restaurant opened in November last year.

  Din Tai Fung would be the most notable arrival to Manhattan’s xiaolongbao scene when it opens its first New York outpost. The 2,453m2 space designed by David Rockwell is to open in June in Times Square. The big-deal Taiwanese chain has been around since the 1970s and has 170-plus locations in 13 countries.

  Each outpost of the chain produces an estimated 10,000 dumplings a day on average; it takes about 30 chefs to keep up with demand. Given the large footprint of the New York location, its dumpling count would likely be even higher.

  Also exponentially increasing the supply of soup dumplings in Manhattan is Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao. The group, which has been a staple of Queens’ Flushing neighborhood for almost 30 years, just opened its second Manhattan location, on St Marks Place; the first opened in Koreatown in October 2022. Each location typically serves about 700 baskets of dumplings, or about 4,200 individual pieces, a day.

  Michael Ma, a partner at Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao, said the company expanded in Manhattan because of growing demand and also to be near the New York University crowd.

  “The East Village has such a diverse and lively energy in the food and beverage scene. It resembles downtown Flushing, where our original location is,” he said.

  Nan Xiang’s roster of dumplings has expanded over the years as the brand’s audience has grown: It now offers about a dozen flavors, including chicken soup dumplings and gourd luffa shrimp pork soup dumplings enhanced with the squash-like vegetable.

  A representative for Din Tai Fung said TikTok and YouTube have created a surge in awareness, via memes such as “Everything I Ate at Din Tai Fung.”

  The videos have generated millions of views and thousands of comments, helping spike sales of dishes including chocolate mochi dumplings, with its gooey, photogenic filling.

  Ma also credited TikTok and Instagram with the explosion (pun definitely intended) of soup dumpling popularity.

  “Social media has been the biggest impact on Nan Xiang growing into the restaurant it is today,” he said.

  Another benefit: Diners are getting better at safely consuming soup dumplings. Before the rise of social media, people vividly remembered their first encounter with soup dumplings, where “they would be warned by dining companions, followed by a demonstration, carefully instructed by a server, or simply learn step by step from a placard at the table” how to eat them properly without scalding themselves with the broth, Ma said.

  Now, TikTok has helped customers become experts by the time they sit down for their inaugural soup dumpling.

  “Everyone has their own unique way of enjoying their soup dumplings,” Ma said. “We only ask that people not try the one-bite method with a freshly steamed soup dumpling, for their safety and the safety of diners around them.”
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