It’s pretty much a given that the place that made the product and the term “xiao long bao” known to people from outside Shanghai is the Nanxiang Mantou Dian in the historical Yu Garden area (Lao Cheng Huang Miao), where it overlooks the famous “blue willow” tea house and its nine-turns bridge. It was established in the year 1900. I’ve eaten there over a 20 year span from 1992 (when Din Tai Fung didn’t exist outside of Taiwan) through 2011 inclusive, and haven’t noticed any difference in the wrapper or filling of the XLB there over time.
The XLB dubbed “Nanjing Tang Bao” by Shen Hongfei are clearly a variation, and deserve a distinguishing name, whether the variation is historical and geographical or just stylistic. I first encountered the style at the original Jia Jia Tang Bao on Henan Nan Lu, well off the beaten path in 2006, and it’s notable that they never use the term “xiao long bao,” only “tang bao” for their products (see their current menu here).
Din Tai Fung’s founder was from Shanxi and left China in 1948, but didn’t start selling steamed buns until more than 30 years after he left China. Where he learned to make them or why they got labeled as “xiao long bao” is unknown, but stylistically they are nearly identical to Jia Jia’s “tang bao,” not to Nanxiang Mantou Dian’s “xiao long bao.”
