Shanghai Asian Cuisine — Soup Dumplings Too Good to Share

First visit: July 2017
Price: Affordable
Cuisine: Chinese, Shanghainese
Vibe: Grandma’s home, hole-in-the-wall
Address: 14A Elizabeth St, New York, NY (Chinatown)
Veg options: Some
COVID-19 delivery: Not at the moment :(

The modest-looking storefront

Before we dive in, I first need to admit that it’s taken me quite a while to actually sit down and write this post, because Shanghai Asian Cuisine (let’s call it “SAC” for short) is one of those hidden gems that you want to selfishly keep to yourself so that you don’t have to start fighting crowds of Chinese grandmas for a table every time you want your xiǎo lóng bāo fix. However, amongst the rising xenophobia surrounding the recent coronavirus epidemic and the recent drive to increase Asian American representation in all areas of life, from film (ayy Parasite) to food (shoutout to David Chang and others for spearheading the effort), I’ve decided that this place is simply too good not to share, and that having to wait a bit for a table is worth being able to spread the joy of perfect soup dumplings to more people.

Ironically, I had first heard about SAC through my non-Asian friend and coworker, Jamie, who had in turn heard about it from one of her friends. If I had just been looking for soup dumpling restaurants on Yelp, I most likely would have scrolled right past Shanghai Asian Cuisine, with its generic name and an unassuming picture of some very standard-looking soup dumplings as its thumbnail image, and settled on one of the more popular establishments like Joe’s Shanghai or Kung Fu Little Steamed buns.

Jamie and I, along with our fellow first year analysts from the Los Angeles branch of our firm, were in NYC with the rest of the incoming analysts at the firm during the summer of 2017 for a five week training program. Our small, four-person Los Angeles analyst class had become very close over the course of our summer internship back in 2016 and, since we were all amateur foodies, we spent the majority of our free nights eating our way through the city together. After a few nights of snacking on hors d'oeuvres at French wine bars and drunkenly gorging ourselves on pizza afterwards, I started having some intense Asian food cravings and suggested that we try out a Chinese restaurant for a change of pace. As Manhattan is home to the largest Chinatown in the United States, I definitely wanted to eat some good Chinese food while I was in the city. Jamie mentioned that one of her friends had been to a hole-in-the-wall Shanghainese restaurant in Chinatown that was supposedly very authentic, so we decided to give it a shot. Little did I know, it was about to become one of my favorite restaurants in the city.

Since that summer, I’ve been back countless times and have created many treasured memories there. Shanghai Asian Cuisine was the first place I took Patrick to when he visited me in NY during the last week of my training program back in 2017. It quickly became our first food stop every time I visited him during the two years of our long distance relationship. It was where I first met Stu— Patrick’s high school friend and roommate while I was living in LA— who has become one of my closest friends in the city. It was where I took my parents for one of their first meals in NYC when they visited me last year during Thanksgiving week. It was where we went for Sunday brunch with Patrick’s family last month when they were visiting NYC for Patrick’s birthday weekend. Every single time I come back to the restaurant, the soup dumplings are just as plump and juicy, the space just as cozy and the tea just as hot and fragrant as the last time I was there. In a way, walking into the restaurant almost feels like coming home.

The interior

The restaurant itself can be tricky to find as it is tucked away on Elizabeth Street, a less traveled street a decent walk away from the Canal Street subway station. It’s just one door down from the well-known Cantonese restaurant Jing Fong, which is famous for having a red carpet leading up to a fancy-looking escalator that takes you up to a huge dining room that can apparently fit up to 400 people. Unlike its extravagant neighbor, SAC is very modest-looking and blends right in with all the other Chinese restaurants on the block. I’ve personally never had to wait for a table, but I’ve heard that it can get busy during peak weekend lunch and dinner hours. The dining area is small, but they’ve made decent use of the space by installing cushioned benches along the left wall of the restaurant that can help accommodate large parties of 10 or more people. The laminated menu is expansive and includes items ranging from standard Shanghainese dishes like soup dumplings and stir-fried rice cakes to more interesting items like mock duck and jellyfish to regional favorites like twice-cooked pork and Sichuan-style bean curd.

Every time I visit, I always get some combination of the following items: steamed tiny buns with pork (soup dumplings / xiǎo lóng bāo), fried tiny buns with pork (shēng jiān bāo), pan-fried pork dumplings (their version of gyoza), Sichuan-style wontons in spicy chili oil, scallion pancake and, one of my favorite vegetable dishes ever, sautéed watercress with enoki mushroom. I’ve also tried a bunch of their other dishes, such as their sautéed dry string beans and rice cakes with shredded pork and preserved vegetables. Everything I’ve had from there has been amazing, but I would strongly recommend starting out with the first few items that I listed, as those are the dishes that made me fall in love with this place. Below are more detailed reviews of my two favorite dishes from SAC: xiǎo lóng bāo and sautéed watercress with enoki mushroom.

1. Xiǎo lóng bāo ($6.75 for 6 pretty big dumplings)

Xiǎo lóng bāo

If you know me, you’ll know that I tend to exaggerate... a lot. Every other day, I’ll declare to Patrick that I’m the hungriest I’ve ever been in my entire life, and he’ll just shake his head and ignore me. However, you’ll have to believe me when I say that the soup dumplings at Shanghai Asian Cuisine are in fact the best soup dumplings that I’ve ever had. This has held true, even after Patrick and I ate our way through China and Taiwan last summer. I know, it’s hard to believe that the best soup dumplings in the world can exist somewhere outside of Shanghai or Taipei, but I’m here to testify that, after having consumed hundreds of soup dumplings across all of Asia, SAC undoubtedly makes the best soup dumplings I’ve ever had the honor of scalding my tongue with (the second best soup dumplings I’ve ever had were at Grandma’s House, a popular restaurant chain in Hangzhou, China). There are five factors that make SAC’s xiǎo lóng bāo so good: the thin skin, the flavorful filling, the consistent soupiness, the piping hot temperature and the affordable price price point.

I know that a lot of you are probably wondering how SAC’s soup dumplings compare to those of some more famous dumpling shops, so here’s a quick and dirty summary of what I think about Ding Tai Fung and Joe’s Shanghai (the former is a popular Taiwanese chain that you’ve all probably heard of, and the latter is a New York City institution with a cult-like following): Ding Tai Fung’s soup dumplings have a very thin skin and are decently juicy, but the filling is pretty bland in my opinion, and the price point is way too high ($12 for 10 tiny dumplings at the Westfield Century City location in LA). I do like Ding Tai Fung for some of their other dishes, such as their famous shrimp and pork potstickers that come connected by a thin layer of fried flour and their vegetable and pork wontons in spicy sauce, but I would not recommend their soup dumplings. Joe’s Shanghai is always crowded (there’s almost always a line at any time of day), way too hectic (you have to share a table with strangers) and their dumpling skin is a bit too thick in my opinion (you can tell because the “knot” at the top is super dry and tough). However, it is still an establishment with a rich history and is definitely worth a visit for the experience.

If you decide to pay a visit to SAC, you MUST try their soup dumplings. Trust me. You won’t be disappointed.

2. Sautéed watercress with enoki mushroom ($14.75)

Sautéed watercress with enoki mushroom

If you love enoki mushrooms like me, then you’re guaranteed to love this dish. If you don’t know what enoki mushrooms are, they’re basically these super long, thin mushrooms (think of them as the noodles of the mushroom world) that have an almost crunchy, chewy texture. They’re great in hot pots and soups and are delicious sauteed as well. Watercress, an extremely underrated leafy green vegetable, is also long and thin, making it a perfect match with the enoki. The two together make for a super flavorful stir-fry dish with tons of textural interest. Patrick doesn’t typically like vegetable dishes, but even he was a fan. The sauce that they use tastes like a mixture of hoisin, black bean and garlic sauce and tastes delicious over steamed white rice.

There are a plethora of dumpling restaurants in New York, some of which have thousands of reviews and perpetual lines that wrap around the block. While it may be tempting to go with the crowd and que up for a more popular, more aesthetic-looking restaurant, I highly urge you to give Shanghai Asian Cuisine a chance to surprise you. From my experience, these hole-in-the-wall, mom-and-pop restaurants typically have higher quality food and deliver a more authentic dining experience than what you would usually get at larger chains and popular “touristy” spots. So, the next time you’re in the area, consider showing my favorite Chinese restaurant in the city some love, and let me know what you think!

Shēng jiān bāo ($6.75) - Same filling as the soup dumplings, but with a doughy exterior and crispy bottom

Pan-fried pork dumplings ($6.75) — Better than I expected! They’ve recently become a new staple

Scallion pancakes ($4.25) — Not my favorite, as I prefer flakey scallion pancakes and these are more doughy, but they’re still tasty and a good way to start the meal

Tips:

• They have a sister restaurant called Tiny Shanghai that recently opened within the past few years on the outskirts of Little Italy! The menus are almost exactly the same. I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, but it looks just as good!

• Like many Chinatown restaurants, this place is CASH ONLY.

• For dessert, head on over to Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (ice cream shop with lots of unique, Asian flavors like durian and almond cookie) or Keki Modern Cakes (jiggly Asian cheesecakes!), both of which are walking distance.

In summary:

Hangry Alice rating: 5/5
Must-get dishes: Xiǎo lóng bāo, Sauteed watercress with enoki mushroom
Skip: Can’t say; I’ve never had anything from SAC that wasn’t great, but I’ve also only ordered from their core menu of ~10 or so items.