ISO Xiao Long Bao [NYC]

[Saregama]

My personal ranking is

1. Joe’s Shanghai (yeah, tourists and all, the xlb are the most flavorful I’ve eaten)
2. Kung Fu (multiple locations — hells kitchen, midtown east, port authority, etc)
3. Elsewhere, including “new” Nan Xiang

Pinch is Din Tai Fung-style — delicate, bite-sized, but low on flavor.

Please come back and share your xlb explorations!

From 5 years ago but still holds:

Joe’s Shanghai XLB / soup dumplings [NYC-Chinatown]

Circling back on Joe’s Shanghai. I was in the neighborhood last week and stopped by for a fix after ages. The dumplings were better than my last visit a couple of years ago. I always get crab+pork. The room is filled with mostly tourists now - that did not used to be the case either on weekends or on weekdays. The dumplings were as I remembered - very flavorful, soupy filling. Large - it’s not comfortable to put a whole dumpling in your mouth, but since I never do that anyway, it doesn’t matt…

Here’s “new” Nan Xiang in Manhattan:

GOOD EATS NYC 2024 (A Blanket Thread)

NAN XIANG XLB / W 33 St I went to the original Nan Xiang in flushing many years ago, and remember it being delicious. Delicate wrappers, flavorful filling, ladies making the xlb while you watched. The “new” Nan Xiang seems like a completely different restaurant with only the name in common. Our meal was generally fine, parts of it good, just not what I was expecting, I guess. The soup dumplings were larger than bite size with a thicker wrapper than I recalled, but the wrapper and the fillin…