Soup Dumplings Spark a Chinatown Dining Renaissance
A cluster of specialists is drawing devoted crowds for the delicate, broth-filled parcels — and reviving a historic neighborhood.
The delicate, broth-filled soup dumpling has become the star of a Chinatown dining renaissance. A cluster of specialists, some new and some long-established, is drawing devoted crowds willing to wait for the perfect pleated parcel.
The craft is exacting: a thin wrapper holding hot soup and filling that must be eaten just so. The fictional restaurant Golden Ladle on Mott Street has built a reputation for dumplings its fans travel across boroughs to eat, steamer basket after steamer basket.
The dumpling boom has brought new energy and foot traffic to a historic neighborhood navigating rising rents and change. For a new generation of diners, it has also become an entry point into the deep and varied world of the city's Chinese cooking.
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