the 小龙包 (soup dumplings) thread
About 8 years ago, I hosted a guy from Minnesota in Beijing who was one of those Sinofile types; he always implored me to join him for 小龙包... and I always declined. Several years later, DTF opened branches in Beijing and Shanghai. Because those guys do pretty good PR, I ended up eating there on numerous occasions at the behest of other visitors. I was never impressed because my mind was on western food. Fast forward to 2012, about a month ago, my friend tipped me off about the fact that the restaurant across the street from me makes decent 小龙包, so I took the plunge (the food options in my neighborhood are rather limited). Ever since, I've become addicted to those things.
The reason I'm starting this thread is because I'm interested in learning about stand out 小龙包 spots (anywhere in the world). I honestly can't tell the difference between the place across the street from me and DTF/Yuyuan (apart from the fact that the latter costs 5x the former). I guess my mouth is untrained. Please enlighten me.