Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant

I have love for the gentle readers of this blog, and I'm strangely proud of my xiaolongbao review section. With an afternoon free, instead of doing something really interesting like studying, I went to Shanghai's cheesy old town shopping complex, and got in line for some Nanxiang Steamed Bun xiaolongbao! Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant is the most famous xiaolongbao in the city, at least with tourists. Due to the location and a long line, it's also a place that is apparently exclusively frequented by tourists – or in my case, when my friends or family visit the city. It's easy to find, right next to the 9-turn bridge and the entrance to Yuyuan Gardens.



Somehow it's on the checklist as a must-do for visitors to this fair city, alongside that viewing platform on the Bund. On a nice day around lunchtime, the line can be expected to last somewhere around an hour. The line tends to move in bursts, as a fresh batch of xiaolongbao gets ready – so frustratingly enough, there's no moving at all, for maybe ten minutes at a time. You do a lot of looking at the xiaolongbao getting steamed:



So how do the xiaolongbao rate? I don't think they're worth a trip to Yuyuan Gardens, nor do I think they're worth waiting in line a long time for, but they're pretty good, certainly better than average. The skin is soft, if a little spongy. The meat is tasty, but dense and too chewy, it's a little like a sausage with wet bread around it. There's no soup inside – that's one of the basic components that makes xiaolongbao be xiaolongbao! Compensate for the dryness by pouring on extra vinegar, there's a big pitcher of vinegar by the counter.



There's not any specific dining area, so people try to get a seat at the nearby benches or steps. The xiaolongbao are sold by a basket of 15 or so, for 12 kuai/basket, that's about $1.80. It's quite a lot of xiaolongbao, more like a small meal than a snack. Currently, after 5:30 they switch to crab xiaolongbao, for 20 kuai/basket. I understand there's also a crowded upstairs dining area with tables and a shorter wait, where the xiaolongbao costs more, but I've never been.



Really the best bet is to visit one of the other xiaolongbao restaurants I've rated – with the exception of the mediocre Din Tai Fung, which has a branch and a whole lot of advertisements nearby. Oh, and there's no business relation to Shangweiguan Nanxiang Xiaolongbao - Nanxiang is the suburb of Shanghai where Shanghai-style xiaolongbao was supposedly invented, it's sometimes used as an adjective to describe local-style xiaolongbao.

Fude Xiaolong

I'm on a spiritual quest to find the best xiaolongbao in Shanghai, and like all spiritual quests, it never really ends. I started out thinking Fu Chun was the best xiaolongbao to be found in Shanghai, but ever since first visiting Delongguan, I sort of waver between which of the two has the best xiaolongbao. Well, for now I have a new favorite, and that would be Fude Xiaolong, in the east side of the Hongkou District.

That wouldn't be the most central of locations. But really, it's just a ten minute walk from line #4's Dalian Station to get there – walk three blocks northwest of the Station, to Dongyuhang Lu, then walk four blocks southwest, a little past Gongping Lu, to 862 Dongyuhang Lu – it's maybe a little quicker, walking south from #4's Linping Lu Station. But that would require skipping Dongyuhang Lu - east of Fude Xiaolong, the road is totally crazy, a packed super-local market street that I love. Also nearby are the old Jewish ghetto, a bunch of old houses, and Xia Hai Temple, they're OK and I'll probably have a later update about them, but they just can't compare to this:



The restaurant is definitely on the hole-in-the-wall side of things, in a hole-in-the-wall sort of area. But given that, it's actually pretty spacious, large, and clean. In addition to the xiaolongbao, at six for four kuai (about sixty cents), it serves noodles and won-tons and the like. There's no drinks, so get them at the convenience store on the nearby corner.



The xiaolongbao are my current favorite, and I've had more than my fair share of xiaolongbao! The skin, if not delicate, isn't spongy, and dissolves in the mouth. The meat inside, while more substantial than I usually prefer, is still so very smoothly ground and so very tasty. And best of all, the insides are totally swimming in soup! There's no sweetness to any of it, and the vinegar is of a good strength.

Shangweiguan Nanxiang Xiaolong

It's been a long while since I've posted an update about xiaolongbao, but please believe it's not from a lack of eating them. I've actually gone a little wild about them, more than I should be considering that the “soup” of xiaolongbao is largely coagulated fat, heated up in a steamer until it melts. I've been frequenting Delongguan the most, and perhaps that's become my favorite xiaolongbao. But I still go to and enjoy all of the xiaolongbao places I've mentioned so far, except for Din Tai Fung which isn't really all that.

Shanghweiguan Nanxiang Xiaolong is currently the top rated (by taste) Xiaolongbao on Chinese food website dianping.com. While these rankings change from time to time, as more and more reviewers pitch in, it appears that Shangweiguan Nanxiang Xiaolong is stuck permanently in the #1 position. It scores a 27 out of 30 on taste, there's no grade inflation on Dianping and that's about as high as ratings get. The #2 xiaolongbao, Jia Jia Tang Bao, currently scores a 25 out of 30.

The branch mentioned here is located in a neighborhood area, rather than a shopping district. There's mostly large apartment buildings nearby, with a small strip of low-key restaurants at Xingshan Lu. It's pretty obvious which is the xiaolongbao restaurant, from all the workers inside making xiaolongbao, there's also steaming pots out front.



Nanxiang Xiaolong's Chinese menu is pretty minimal: the standard pork xiaolongbao, shrimp xiaolongbao, and won tons. As always, for non-Chinese speakers just saying “xiaolongbao” and giving an appropriate amount of money should do the trick. Drinks are next door at the convenience store. This is 3.5 kuai's worth of xiaolongbao:



It doesn't look too promising, to be honest. But it's easy to tell why these are the top rated xiaolongbao in town. Xiaolongbao is supposed to be delicate, and these are as delicate as I imagine possible- they seem to dissolve in the mouth. That's true of the dough in particular, but even the meat is obviously very well ground, and unlike the vast majority of meatballs can be described as “light” and “silky.” The taste of the soup and meat is also very nice. Personally I wouldn't claim these are the best xiaolongbao in Shanghai, just because the competition is so strong. However they are still excellent, have a unique vibe to them, and I definitely recommend anyone in Shanghai to try them.

The restaurant is located on 598 Xingshan Lu. The big problem with the place is, it's not very convenient to get to. Personally I walk from Jinshajiang elevated subway station, it takes about fifteen minutes. There’s a whole lot of lefts and rights involved, so I don't imagine there's an entirely convenient bus – of course a taxi, or a motorcycle taxi, is also a possibility. Here's a map, in Chinese, of the local area – the “A” in the upper left corner is the location, and I don't think it's as confusing as it may look.

Wanshou Zhai Xiaolongbao

Wanshou Zhai Xiaolongbao is a small stall that sells an atypical but very tasty xiaolongbao. It's on 123 Shanyin Lu, near Duolun Lu and the Hongkou Soccer Stadium, in the North of Shanghai. It's not the normal stomping grounds for myself or the average foreigner in Shanghai, but actually the area is one of my favorite parts to wander in Shanghai - I'll have a few updates on the area before too long. It's another place that I had walked past before, without giving it a second thought. The storefront is small and really nothing special to look at:



And it's cramped on the insides as well! I took this picture from the far corner of the restaurant. There's four tables inside and one table outside. This place is packed even during off-hours, strangers end up sharing tables:



In the back are cooks, preparing food. Here's a shot of it below. In this case, they're preparing won-tons, not xiaolongbao. They also serve noodle soups:



So obviously the restaurant is not anything fancy. The xiaolongbao, though, are excellent, if unusual. The general idea with xiaolongbao is, the skin should be as thin as possible, without being easy to break and letting out the soup inside. However, the xiaolongbao at Wanshou Zhai are unapologetically thick and chewy, the complete opposite of the general ideal. However I feel about this, there's no way around that the soup inside their xiaolongbao is the best I've ever had, absolutely juicy and full of flavor. The meat is decent and the vinegar is typical. Here's a picture of four and a half kuai's worth:



This restaurant was rated on dianping.com as the fourth best xiaolongbao in Shanghai. I wouldn't go that far, but they're definitely very good. Being in an interesting area of older houses, and the nearby Lu Xun park, certainly doesn't hurt. I recommend any xiaolongbao fan to check them out!

Update 2/17/09 - I've been a number of times since writing this, and have a few more thoughts. This is the rare xiaolongbao restaurant which would be a very good restaurant even without having xiaolongbao on the menu. All the noodle and won-ton dishes are excellent. Myself, I generally go for the spicy-pork noodles, alongside my xiaolongbao.

That said, it can get absurdly crowded any day of the week, particularly around lunchtime or as an early-ish dinner. I also feel quality varies. While it's never bad, the xiaolongbao can be made sloppily when it's too packed, and not have any soup inside. So it might be worth it to make a point of visiting at an off hour, say the early afternoon or after 6:30

Delongguan's Xiaolongbao - Quality Over Ambience

Continuing on with my look at Shanghai's best-regarded xiaolongbao is Delongguan Dim Sum - it's a local chain with a few branches around Shanghai. These branches tend to top Dianping.com's list of top xiaolongbao restaurants. However the chains don't look like much, and I'm embarrassed to admit that after all my time in Shanghai, and having walked past these places a number of times, this was the first I had ever tried it.

I found Delongguan to be just about the polar opposite of my recently-reviewed Din Tai Fung. While that restaurant's interior felt modern, and the restaurant was heavily staffed by responsive servicemen, Delongguan (on Jiangxi Lu) was a dirty hole in the wall, with cigarette butts on the floor and the kitchen staff sitting around, bored:



So it's probably not the best place to bring the important business client, who would probably prefer Din Tai Fung. I kid - even for a hardened street eater like me, it seemed a little dirty. However, the taste is excellent, much better than Din Tai Fung's. The wrapper was thin, if not extremely thin, and maybe a tad mushy. The vinegar hit was just about the right strength, if nothing fancy. However, the meat filling was excellent and the soup was incredibly flavorful. Here's a look at the xiaolongbao. You can't tell, but it's one normal pork, and the other shrimp:



I also thought it was just about to my tastes - these xiaolongbao are in the running for my favorite Xiaolongbao in Shanghai, against Fuchun's. I'll reserve final judgement until I've tried all the top-ranked xiaolongbao restaurants, but I think any xiaolongbao fan in Shanghai should try both. While I prefer the environment and the wrapper at Fuchun, there's a slight sweetness to the xiaolongbao there, it's not something I particularly care for.

These pictures were taken at the branch on 473 Jiangxi Road, North of the Bund, South of the Suzhou River, and just a couple short blocks West of what becomes Zhapu Lu.

Update 9/1/2009 - This place was recently torn down - here's a Chinese-language list of other Delongguan Restaurants, although none of them are as convenient. I'm most familiar with the branch on 29 Tiyuhui Lu, near the Hongkou Football Stadium and around the corner from the excellent Hunanese restaurant, Guoyuan.

It's all an interesting area, and I'd really advice anyone in Shanghai to stroll the area, and to get a steamer of xiaolongbao while they're at it - although there's a lot of great street food and smaller restaurants in the area. Unfortunately, this restaurant (and the surrounding area) is Chinese only - but saying "xiaolongbao" should get the point across. Here's the menu, they also serve soups and noodles and won-tons (that aren't particularly good).



There's several other branches around Shanghai, none of them particularly convenient. The other ones I've seen are a bit cleaner, though. Here's a picture of the Jiangxi Lu storefront - it's easy to walk past it without giving it a second thought, as I did dozens of times.

Din Tai Fung - Expensive Xiaolongbao

This is yet another (and certainly not the last) of my great xiaolongbao taste-test. Xiaolongbao is a Shanghai specialty - a simple, delicate, and excellent snack that breaks down to a thin flour wrapper with meat and "soup" inside, dipped in Chinese vinegar.

While so far I've been speaking about the best restaurants in terms of my favorite food website Dianping.com, Din Tai Fung doesn't get particularly high marks on the site - reviews are positive but often lukewarm, with good service and high prices being frequently mentioned. On the other hand, expat site after expat site raves about Din Tai Fung's xiaolongbao, and the always-fun-to-read Christopher St. Cavish, restaurant reviewer for SH Magazine, even named their pork & crab xiaolongbao as the #1 dish to try in Shanghai.

Anyway, it's hard to directly compare this restaurant to say, Jia Jia Tang Bao. While that restaurant amounts to a dive with a line, Din Tai Fung, a Taiwanese chain, feels like an upscale restaurant. It's the type of place you might meet a business person, or do something really serious like that. There's a few branches of the chain throughout Shanghai, they're all in upscale locations, and the Lujiazui branch even has a nice view of the Huangpu River and the local skyscrapers:



They serve a number of dishes from various Chinese styles, with a Hong Kong and a Shanghai slant to what's on offer. Of course the xiaolongbao are the reason I went, and they actually have three versions on offer: standard xiaolongbao, smaller xiaolongbao served in a pork broth, and a xiaolongbao where the insides are a mixture of pork and crab. It's worth mentioning they were all expensive, going for around thirty five kuai an order, with their orders being smaller than what's generally available at other xiaolongbao restaurants. They end up being around ten times more expensive than other places.

But I'm willing to pay $5 for quality, and I didn't let the price bother me for these smaller xiaolongbao. They're about half the size of a normal xiaolongbao, and the idea is to put them in the broth, and then eat them as if a soup. It's enjoyed on a different level than standard xiaolongbao, with the flavors centered off the flavorful, rich, and gingered pork broth absorbed by the xiaolongbao's skin, but I enjoyed them:



But the main event was the xiaolongbao. Initial impressions were good: the vinegar was of the perfect strength, and even had sliced ginger in the dipping dish, the way I remember loving at Oakland's Shanghai Restaurant. It's subtler than one might expect, but gives the vinegar a better flavor:



Additionally, the skin of the xiaolongbao was obviousy very thin and meticulously prepared, while still managing to hold all the soup in. For xiaolongbao fans, the huge amount of folds on top is a thing of beauty:



But it all came crashing down after that. The insides of the xiaolongbao are really nothing at all special: the pork is dry and the soup is flavorless, and in the end the wrapper and the vinegar are mere accompaniments to the meat and the soup. I wasn't convinced the xiaolongbao were any better than that of another Taiwanese chain, the fast food restaurant Yong He Da Wang.

The small xiaolongbao in soup are still excellent, though. And the restaurant is clearly much classier than most any other place with xiaolongbao on the menu. So it might be worth having a look, even if I personally don't plan to ever go again. Also, the restaurant has branches in LA, Toronto, Sydney, and a number of larger cities throughout Asia.

Update 9/1/2009 - I went to the one in Arcadia (a suburb of LA) last year. A little expensive, a little salty, a little parking lot, and the atmosphere is cheap and old, but the xiaolongbao taste exactly the same. Decent xiaolongbao is hard to find in America, so even if I strongly recommend against this place in Shanghai, it's probably worth checking out for someone who happens to find themselves living in or driving through Arcadia.

Jia Jia Tang Bao - More Great Xiaolongbao

A quick follow-up on my last update, about Fuchun Xiaolongbao. While I like the xiaolongbao there very much, it's ranked a mere #9 on diangping.com's list of xiaolongbao restaurants! So obviously I decided to opt for the Cadillac. Or in this case, the second-best on the menu, the Oldsmobile as it were. The #1 rated Xiaolongbao is a little out-of-the-way for me.

It's the well-known Jia Jia Tang Bao. I've actually been a few times, but it had been a while. It's a pretty convenient place to get to - on 90 Huanghe Lu, just a couple minute's walk North of the very central People's Park (#8 Subway exit). It's practically next door to the excellent Fusion-ish handmade noodles at Lao Kele restaurant.

Which is part of what kept me away - if I happen to be in the area, it's easy to just opt for Lao Kele. And if I just want a snack, Jia Jia Tang Bao either is very busy or has a line - there's no shortage of snack foods in the area, and it's easy just to opt for somewhere else. That's especially true now that there's a branch of Xiao Yang's Shengjian opened up directly across the street - it's basically a fried version of xiaolongbao, and very nearly as good.

So, you have to be prepared to wait in a line if it's a weekend. The line doesn't move very fast, which is understandable as there isn't a separate line for take-out, and the restaurant itself is quite small, it seats maybe thirty people total, and it's quite likely people will be splitting tables:



There's also a bit of a wait for the xiaolongbao to arrive, there's several varieties and they're made to order. The xiaolongbao are made by a group of young women, it all happens behind a big glass window, you can look in and see them fill the dough with the stuffing.



So I'll toss the gauntlet down: Jia Jia Tang Bao's xiaolongbao are not as good as Fu Chun's xiaolongbao. The wrapper doesn't taste as good, the soup isn't interesting, and the meat filling isn't ground enough to give it a proper consistency. It's not terrible but it's not particularly memorable. However, I also tried several other varieties: the shrimp-meat version was truly excellent, despite my general aversion to shrimp. And the chicken xiaolongbao was every bit as good, although it did have a very pronounced chicken flavor. I also enjoy their soups.

So while it's too bad the restaurant can't quite get the signature dish correct, I definitely recommend the restaurant on the strength of these versions, and it's probably worth trying different orders - when business is slower, they can split the orders into halves.



There's no English signs and probably no English spoken - a basic order for xiaolongbao will work though. It's 7.5 kuai (about $1) for a steamer of 10, and a single person would probably make a meal out of one steamer, or perhaps two. Shrimp is "renxia" and chicken is "jiding" - for those living the high life, there was one variation selling at 81 kuai for a single steamer.

Update 12/29/08 - Aside from the line to order, there can also be a fifteen or twenty minute wait once you're already seated. I'm a little more negative on this place than when I first wrote the update, if only because it can take such a long time to eat what boils down to a snack food, and these really aren't the best xialongbao in town.

After 2 or 3pm, the lines disappear, but only the more expensive crab varieties are available - 19.5 or 81 kuai for one steamer's worth. I've had the 19.5 kuai version a few times, it's actually very good.

Fuchun - My favorite Xiaolongbao

It shows my fantastic lack of consideration that after one hundred fifty posts or so, this is the first proper posting about xiaolongbao, a Shanghai specialty and a favorite snack of mine. It's a small dough wrapper, filled with a mild pork and soup filling, and then steamed - it's usually served on the steamer, and the "xiaolong" of the name means "small steamer." It comes with a sauce, which is generally diluted Chinese black vinegar - a flavored variety that is a thousand times tastier than distilled white vinegar.

But I'll leave a general update for later. Take it for granted that xialongbao is probably the one positive contribution Shanghai has made to world cuisine. This post is about my favorite place to buy them: Fuchun Xialong. It's a restaurant I first learned about through the Chinese-language review site Dianping. It's located near Jiangsu Station, or about a ten minute walk West from Jing'an Temple/station. The address is 658 Yuyuan Lu, and the nearest cross-street is Zhengning Road.

The insides are really nothing special, there's a big sign behind the counter and you either order at the front desk and get a receipt, or tell one of the waitresses the order. It basically feels like an average every-day sort of restaurant, or maybe half a step up from that:



There's no English, but it shouldn't be hard to convey a desire for xiaolongbao! It's four kuai (about fifty cents) for six of them. There's a fairly lengthy menu with noodles and so forth, however every time I've been, every table is ordering xiaolongbao, and then maybe something else as well. Here's a look at the menu:



But most important is the xiaolongbao! The reason why I like Fuchun's variety is the skin, which is excellent - delicate but not easily breaking, which would let the soup out. The insides are also very good, perhaps a bit on the sweet side. The only thing I don't like is, while I like the vinegar strong, at Fuchun it's a little weak - it isn't really a problem, it just means I smother it in the dipping sauce a little more than I usually would. Sometimes I take the xiaolongbao to go and add Chinese vinegar at home, which is even better. Here are a couple of the xiaolongbao, lying in their steamer:



I order more than my fair share of xiaolongbao, and Fuchun's are my favorite, but I'm not confident enough to say it's Shanghai's *best* xiaolongbao. I haven't yet been to Ding Tai Fung, an upscale Taiwanese chain I've heard mentioned as Shanghai's best. I also see that Fuchun is a mere ninth in Dianping's top-rated Xiaolongbao restaurants. Writing this update has inspired me, I'll try the places that are supposed to be tops, and perhaps report back later.