70 total calories, out of which 180 are from fat??? That really is impressively bad for you!

That's SATURATED fat.:D

Thanks for the tip.

tb

Looking at your picture, I don't think we're talking about the same thing. The 小籠包 (xiao long bao) and 湯包 (soup dumplings) that I am familiar with are both steamed and served in a bamboo steam tray, never in soup. "Soup dumpling" is a term used to describe a variation of xiao long bao where the inside is extra juicy, but it is still steamed, not in a soup.

Is this how it is commonly served in China?

Xiao Long Bao should look like that in China.

http://images.postling.com/a/a7f/g_fullxfull.10437.jpg

This is making me hungry...

Yes, this is the kind I am familiar with.

Yes, the photo is not XLB, its dumpling soup.


(soup dumpling (xiao long bao) soup with vegetarian shark’s fin $4?)

Mat ordered soup dumping soup. I didn’t think too much of it especially the fake shark’s fin bit. But Mat really liked it (but you know, he’s a vego. Can’t really trust him. He’s not used to flavours. Haha.)


http://www.spatulaspoonandsaturday.c...arian-yum-cha/

The dumplings at Yang's Fried-Dumpling in Shanghai are fabulous. And fabulously inexpensive. ^

Xiao long bao was invented in Shanghai and spread to the neighboring cities where it evolved into the xiao tang bao (I think that is from Nanjing). Nowadays though there is not much distinction between the two though people in Shanghai calls them xiao long bao while people in Nanjing etc call them xiao tang bao.

I guess I’m in the minority here, to me DTF is absolutely the worst, it may looks like the real thing, but that's where the similarities end. The NanXiang XiaoLong 南翔小笼 at Yu Garden used to have decent XLB, but it has also gone downhill the last few years.

There two types of XLB in SH, the Nanxiang 南翔 style & Zhenjiang 镇江 style, the main difference is the dough, the former uses oil in the dough, the latter doesn’t.

Nowadays I usually get my XLB fix at JiaJia 佳家汤包, it's not perfect, but better than anything else I've tried, plus it's dirt cheap compared to DTF or NanXiang.

小杨生煎 is decent, the skin is crunchy, but the filling is a bit too loose, plus the size of the dumpling is just too big. FYI there are also two styles of 生煎, you can tell the difference by the seams, 小杨 is the new style, i.e. the seam faces down, unlike the old style where the seam faces up, personally I prefer the new style.

Going OT from what moondog said, but I've seen more individual Hangzhou xiaolongbar eateries than Shanghai ones. The ones I'm talking about are always holes-in-the-qiangbi, anyway, what's the difference? Or does Hangzhou just want to claim something and since Shanghai is relatively close, that's the dish?

Also, has anyone tried Wuxi's XLB? Those tasted a bit sweeter.

I had some Xiaoyang Shengqian from during lunch today, in part because unlike XLB, they crank those things out like with blazing speed. I've decided that I'm not really a fan. Sure they taste okay, but they are really difficult without make a fool of yourself, a mess, or both.

My sister learned to make them from a friends mother, and she does an amazing job! She does meats, bean pastes, custards, all sorts of fillings in them. she makes some unfilled sometimes not as fond of those :D

This is not my preferred method, but if you want to be less messy: grab a spoon, take a small bite out of the dumpling, drain the soup into the spoon, dip the dumpling in vinegar, finish the dumpling then the soup, repeat :D