Forget-me-not: Xiao long bao

After living in Shanghai for almost two years, I boarded the plane to Manila bitterly, with the thought that I would not be able to get my weekly fix of xiao long bao, directly translated: “small basket dumpling.” My heart had been captured by this tiny magically hand-wrapped minced pork dumpling with hot broth inside. They are so compact and yet, so delicate to gaze upon; tasty to consume, oozing with elegant umami flavors that hits home every time.

MELTS-IN-YOUR-MOUTH GOODNESS!

Photo courtesy of Foodpoi.com.

HOW TO MEASURE DUMPLING PERFECTION?

“The Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index ” by Christopher St. Cavish.

Photo courtesy of http://www.theshanghaisoupdumplingindex.com.

#Sepanx (Separation Anxiety)—that’s most difficult part—since its delicious taste seemed to map its own way to my taste buds and olfactory receptors. So it lingers, subconsciouly, like an old flame.

In Shanghai every corner is dotted with their own version and specialty of this irresistable delicacy. If I probably wasn’t preoccupied with other things, I would have outdone Christopher St. Cavish to his “Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index.”

Such was his obsession for xiao long baos, that according to his interview with the website Lucky Peach, he worked on a scientific investigation on Shanghai’s soup dumplings. He calls it a “quantitative interpretation of the colloquial standards for a well-constructed soup dumpling.” (Genius!)

His detective-like apparatuses? He brought with him a digital scale and armed himself with a 0-150mm caliper, and well, a hefty happy appetite. Off he went to 52 soup dumpling places around Shanghai in a span of year. Like a mad scientist, he measured the weight of the filling (minced Pork only), the weight of the liquid, and the thickness of each of the skins. This resulted to his very thorough dumpling index.

You can view Cavish’s “Dumpling Index” here. The Printed version is, sadly, sold out (But of course!). But you can still purchase the digital counterpart, $3 via Gumroad.com.

DUMPLING ESPIONAGE.

It’s an A3 poster with visual representation and on the back, an objective analysis and index of Nanxiang-style soup dumplings, or Shanghai xiao long bao.

Photo courtesy of http://www.theshanghaisoupdumplingindex.com.

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In service of the Index, I have eaten 7.243 kilograms of soup dumplings in the past sixteen months. Rather, I have ordered 7.243 kilograms of soup dumplings, one basket of six—or sometimes five, or sometimes eight, and once twenty—at a time....About a year and exactly forty-three shops later, I had ordered, partially consumed, and throroughly examined a quantity of soup dumplings as heavy as the maximum legal limit of a bowling ball.

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Here’s an excerpt of his Lucky Peach interview by Brette Warshaw, published on April 20, 2015.

What inspired you to do this project, and why do you think people should care?

The inspiration was a mix of petty reasons and lofty reasons. Petty: I wanted a data-based defense of Din Tai Fung, which I like tremendously. I hate the debate around them—it’s almost never about the actual dumplings. I just wanted a snappy comeback for when people started slagging it off, telling me how Jia Jia or Fu De or whatever is soooo much better. So that was my ulterior motive.

Lofty: I wanted to write about food in a new way. I was growing tired of reading the same old subjective clichés with no meat to them: “delicious,” “nom nom,” “melts in your mouth,” or whatnot. So I thought, What would happen if I measure something objectively? Xiao long bao happen to be the perfect thing for that. Three of the four standards for what makes a good one (thin skin, a lot of soup, a lot of meat) can be measured easily and with cheap tools. You can’t do that with sheng jian bao, with hongshao rou, with a hairy crab. Other reasons: I find these types of quests fun; I’d never seen a comprehensive survey of so many xiao long bao places, much less one in English; xiao long bao are basically one of our mascots.

I don’t know if people will care. But if they do, I imagine it will be because it’s a completely ridiculous project to visit fifty-two xiao long bao restaurants, and even more ridiculous to do it from this science/engineering angle. And because everyone has their own favorites, so they’ll be curious to see how they ranked. And because xiao long bao are cheap. Anyone can go and see how my results match their experience.

At what time did you choose to visit the restaurants? Did you find that time was a factor in assessing the quality of xiao long bao?

Time is only a factor inasmuch as it means you might get a freshly steamed dumpling, and that is far and away the most important factor. If the dumplings have been steamed and sitting around, forget it. I did one big test about the effect of time and found that after ten minutes, the skin swells by 25 percent—it gets much thicker. After forty minutes, that figure is over 50 percent. So, no, time of day does not really matter as long as the shop is really making them to order, or is able to match the customer flow to their work process.

Is there any personal favorite among the Class A restaurants, or even Class B restaurants, based totally on your subjective evaluation?

Just taste, not the story around it? Well, Zun Ke Lai is pretty damn good. The one ayi—and there’s just one—who is responsible for the xiao long at the Shanghai Stadium branch is a master. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I was surprised to find myself actually enjoying the assembly-line xiao long bao from the takeout window at Yu Garden. Not as xiao long bao—by that measure, they are awful—but as just plain, doughy pork dumplings.

For Cavish's full interview read on here. He also wrote an article, explaining his thoughts and process entitled, "Behind the Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index," published April 20, 2015. Read more about it here.

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Next comes the engineering. A soup dumpling is basically a balance

between two competing forces: a thin-as-possible skin (whose purpose is to transport a meatball and soup, and then get out of the way) and as much filling as possible. There is a debate here as well, over the thickness of the skin, and whether a thicker wrapper represents a lack of technical faculty or a theoretical position on the balance of wheat flavor a dumpling should achieve. I subscribe to the former school of thought.

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#xiaolongbao #shanghai #chinesefood #dumplingindex #ChristopherStCavish #LuckyPeach