The Hungry Palate
Xiao long bao under five bucks is the real boon at Shanghai Dumpling King
By Susan Dyer Reynolds

I forgot how much I loved Shanghai Dumpling King, the nonchalant outer Richmond eatery, until a recent trip to the Barking Lot with Jasmine Blue. Nearly a month after my trusty pit bull’s second TPLO surgery with Dr. Sams (to fix her bum right knee this time), she was finally able to have a bath. Good thing. She was starting to smell like a dog.


Groomer extraordinaire Joy Bonehill had a full day as always, which translates to “we have a dog sitter for a few hours, let’s grab lunch!” Northside San Francisco’s vice president of advertising, Ryan Bentham, was along with his rescued Yorkshire terrier, Bailey, who was in for much more than a bath – a cute Yorkie cut and some anal gland expressing, to be exact (glad I got that out of the way before we started talking about the food).

Exiting the Barking Lot on that rainy afternoon, I glanced to the left on Balboa Street and recognized the nearly invisible sign of Shanghai Dumpling King. “We’re going to have soup dumplings,” I told Ryan, who had never had them and looked perplexed.

What Americans affectionately call soup dumplings are actually a Shanghai specialty known as xiao long bao, a type of boazi, or filled bun. The best I’ve had are at Yank Sing, but then again, it’s tough for many restaurants, Chinese or otherwise, to compare with Yank Sing, which rates as one of my top 10 restaurants in the entire Bay Area. Still, xiao long bao are tough to come by, and good ones nearly impossible. At Shanghai Dumpling King, you will find the second best version in San Francisco, and they are dirt-cheap (10 juicy pieces for $4.95).

The key to great xiao long bao is the skin – it must be nearly translucent, but not so thin that it breaks when you pick it up with your chopsticks, thus spilling the liquid gold inside. The broth starts as a gelatin, usually made with agar-agar (a polysaccharide found in the cell walls of some red algae), cut into cubes. The filling for classic xiao long bao is a mixture of ground pork, green onions, ginger, rice wine, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sugar. (In the town of Nanxiang where they were invented, a fancier version includes crab roe.) The thin dough envelops the gelatin and filling, pinched at the top to resemble a pointy chef’s toque.
With proper xiao long bao, when you pick up the pouch by its pointy top, the soup and filling within should weigh it down, creating a teardrop shape. The ritual is simple: gently place it on a spoon, allowing the pasta purse to flatten again, and drizzle it with Chinkiang (a vaguely sweet and smoky black rice vinegar) peppered with fresh ginger slivers. I start by nipping off the tip to release the steam and allow it to cool for a moment (otherwise you will be peeling skin off the roof of your mouth for a month). The gelatin broth melts when steamed, creating a burst of hot broth around the texture of the rich filling intermingled with the tangy sauce. The first time I had soup dumplings at Yank Sing was a revelation. The second time at Shanghai Dumpling King didn’t come with the same element of surprise, except when I saw the bill – two of us gorged ourselves for under $20, and we ate more than a bamboo basket full of xiao long bao.

Another must-try is the “lion heads” ($7.95) – three huge meatballs the size of Jasmine Blue’s noggin. Made from a combination of pork, garlic, green onions, and crunchy water chestnuts, they are surprisingly light and fluffy inside; they are pan-seared to create a caramelized crust and then braised in soy gravy. You can also order them in an equally decadent soup with Chinese cabbage and vermicelli noodles ($9.95).

The list of soups is extensive – from ubiquitous wonton to more exotic sauteed eel; pork with preserved vegetables and smoked fish. (On the specials’ board, you might find tripe with green onions or spicy tendon.) Heaping hot bowls range in price from $4.95 to $7.95 and easily feed four people as a starter or two people as a main course. One of the most stellar soups is easily missed because the description, “hot and spicy beef stew in noodles,” is misleading. I noticed a couple slurping away on a bowl of it during one visit and asked what it was. The “stew” is actually strips of tender beef in a light and lovely broth with thin, chewy egg noodles (I ordered it mild; the spicy version will definitely clear your sinuses).

Besides the famous xiao long bao, the menu features 23 additional boazi, from petite pan-fried pot stickers (8 for $4.95) to hung zhou (pork and crab) dumplings (8 for $8.95) to sweet or savory soybean milk ($1.25/$1.50 each). The spicy chive and pork dumplings (10 for $4.95) are a perfect bite, just spicy enough, and served with a sauce of hot oil and vinegar dotted with sesame seeds, chili flakes and green onions. They also include the green onion pancakes ($4.65) in the bun and dumplings category – a lot of regulars order these, but I found them a tad too greasy and starchy. I also pass on the thick, slippery stir-fried Shanghai-style noodles, another popular item, for the same reasons.

No matter how full I am, it is simply not an option to pass on the “sugar egg puffs” (3 for $2.95), essentially giant doughnut holes. Fresh from the fryer and buried under an avalanche of sugar, the softball-sized wonders are airy and warm, with a moist, eggy center.

The service is friendly and as casual as the ambiance – it’s better on a slow afternoon than during a dinner or weekend rush, but the food always arrives quickly and the quality is consistent. Parking is usually a breeze, too; even on a Saturday at 1 p.m., we parked just a block away with little effort. There can be a wait for tables, but the line moves at a good pace. Let’s face it, if I had to drive around the block 30 times, wait an hour, and the dishes were thrown at me, it would be worth it for those soupy dumplings and sugary puffs.
Shanghai Dumpling King: 3319 Balboa Street (at 34th), 415-387-2088, Sunday through Thursday 10:30 a.m. to 9:15 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.; closed Tuesdays.–S. D. Reynolds