Soup Dumplings STL now open in University City

They are a regionally iconic food. There are plenty of substandard renditions, but the cognoscenti will tell you where to find the best versions. They may be pleasantly toasty on the surface and volcanic on the inside, rendering your tongue into a flambé—yet you keep right on eating them. They can play a minor role in a bigger meal, but sometimes you just want to sit down and put away a dozen or so, either plain or with an accompanying sauce.

When you think about it, Shanghai’s xiaolongbao “soup dumplings” have a lot in common with St. Louis’ toasted ravioli. (They even each have their slangy abbreviations: Just as someone on The Hill is tucking into a plate of T-ravs, somebody in Shanghai’s Nanxiang neighborhood is calling out for a bamboo steamer of XLB.)

The most significant difference between the two is that while toasted ravioli remain a regional favorite, soup dumplings have spread far and wide. Soup dumplings were originally a Shanghai specialty, but their fame expanded to other parts of China in no small part because of a movie from about 15 years ago, Da cheng, xiao chi (“Leaving Me, Loving You”).

Whoever came up with the idea is genius: A thin, moist dumpling skin wraps around a hot, meaty, soup-like broth, along with a filling of pork or other protein. It's like a savory present, just waiting to be opened. The mystery of how the soup gets into the dumplings is solved with one word: gelatinization—when chilled, a batch of liquid solidifies into an aspic of sorts, with a Jell-O-like firmness that dissolves back into velvety soup when the dumpling swaddling goes into a steamer. (The steamer is, in Mandarin, a xiaolong; bao refers to the dough-based dumpling.)

In St. Louis, the dish is available at Soup Dumplings STL, which opened last month in University City. It's located two doors down from Private Kitchen, where owner Lawrence Chen often served xiaolongbao.

The name pretty much says it all: It’s St. Louis. It’s dumplings. Soup dumplings. What more do you need to know? OK, maybe this...

Unlike Private Kitchen, Soup Dumplings STL is absolutely bare bones. The menu hanging behind the counter lists beef, chicken, crab, or pork dumplings. Orders come with six dumplings.

There are other offerings—whatever the kitchen decides to put in the cases at the counter changes from day to day. On a recent visit, the cases contained soy sauce-braised lotus root; “Drunken Chicken” stewed in rice wine; and slices of mackerel cooked with soy sauce, sugar, and five-spice powder. They’re all basically nibbles to keep you occupied until the dumplings arrive.

The plump dumplings are served in stacked steamers that give off an unmistakable aroma. Notice that little swirl where the dough was twisted shut? That was done by a woman in the kitchen who turns these beauties out en masse. Admire the work, and be careful to gently lift the dumpling off the steamer with a spoon, which cradles the dumpling so it fits neatly in your mouth.

Whether you want to put that whole dumpling in your mouth is a separate subject, but an important one. There are all kinds of experts who are happy to tell you the “correct” way to eat xiaolongbao. Truth is, there isn’t any one method—though there are wrong ways to eat them. Stabbing soup dumplings with chopsticks to lift them from the steamer, for example, just spills that lovely soup into the basket. As for slurping the whole dumpling into your mouth? Remember Rush Hour 2, where the bad guys put a little snack-size bomb in Jackie Chan’s mouth and threatened to detonate it? That’s pretty much what you’ve done with a soup dumpling when you put the whole thing in your mouth. Bite down, and you risk pulling the pin on a soup grenade.

Instead, consider this method: Using your chopsticks or fingertips, lift the dumpling by the little knob on its top and transfer it to your spoon. Then nip off the knob with your teeth, opening the inside and either sucking out the soup or using your chopsticks to tilt the dumpling over enough for the soup to fill the spoon. Now you have the remains, the meat, and that beautiful steamed dough. That’s when it’s time to add a couple drops of soy sauce, chili oil, and black vinegar.

It’s a custom to eat the first dumpling without any condiment, just to get an idea of the unadulterated taste. It’s also a custom to mix the condiment with three parts of vinegar to one part soy sauce. Some aficionados insist soy sauce is way too strong to be anywhere near xiaolongbao while others think the only proper condiment is chili oil.

The classic broth used for soup dumplings is made from pork; here, it tastes like they’re using chicken stock, which is more common for xiaolongbao since it gelatinizes more easily and has a deeper, richer flavor. Don’t get so carried away with that luscious soup that you neglect to appreciate the dumpling’s filling. Whatever the meat, the flavors of ginger, green onion, sesame seed oil, and Shaoxing wine combine to create an addictive treat.

Soup Dumpling STL has the process down. Orders are steamed at nearby Private Kitchen before the stacks of steamers are delivered to your table. On a recent lunchtime visit, it took just five minutes for ours to arrive. “About 80 percent of our customers are non-Chinese,” the fellow at the counter told us (although at the time there was a lot more Mandarin than English spoken at the tables). Dinner is more relaxed, with tables lingering, ordering steamer after steamer of soup dumplings.

Xiaolongbao are among the “little eats,” or xiaochi, that make one of the tastier niches in Chinese cuisine. It’s great that they’re available here now.

We’re just wondering how long it will take before someone figures out how to deep-fry them and serve them with marinara.