Chinese soup dumplings explode in New York’s Manhattan as YouTube and TikTok fuel a xiaolongbao craze
- Xiaolongbao, or Chinese soup dumplings, are having a moment in Manhattan, as Taiwanese chain Din Tai Fung, and New York vendors, are expanding into the borough
- Stakeholders credit viral social media videos with the surge in popularity, as restaurants experiment with unconventional flavours from truffle to chocolate
Across Manhattan, in New York, diners are picking up their soup spoons and chopsticks and biting (ever so carefully) into the city’s hottest order.
Xiaolongbao, aka soup dumplings, are a dim sum classic, traditionally made with ground pork and/or crab – or, increasingly, unconventional ingredients such as matzo balls – in a 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.
In Midtown, Long Island Dumplings opened behind an anonymous storefront on Sixth Avenue in December. Chef and owner Jason Lee, who opened the place as an offshoot of his popular Long Island Pekin in Babylon, New York, specialises 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 both fresh and dried mushrooms and a potato base.
On upper Broadway, at 101st Street, the home-made steamed pork soup dumplings at Moon Kee have been a bestseller since the restaurant opened in November.
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 is likely to be even higher.
Also increasing the supply of soup dumplings in Manhattan is Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao.
The group, which has been a staple of Queens’ Flushing neighbourhood for almost 30 years, just opened its second Manhattan location, on Saint Mark’s Place; the first opened in Koreatown in October 2022. Each location typically serves about 700 baskets of dumplings, or roughly 4,200 individual pieces, a day.
Michael Ma, a partner at Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao, says 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 says.
Nan Xiang’s roster of dumplings has expanded over the years as the brand’s audience has grown: It now offers about a dozen flavours, including chicken soup dumplings and gourd loofah shrimp pork soup dumplings.
Another benefit: diners are getting better at safely consuming xiaolongbao.
Before the rise of social media, people vividly remembered their first encounter with soup dumplings, Ma says, 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.
Now, TikTok has helped customers become experts by the time they sit down for their inaugural xiaolongbao.
“Everyone has their own unique way of enjoying their soup dumplings,” Ma says. “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.”
