Din Tai Fung at Manhattan

choi

Melissa Clark, On the Trail in Pursuit of Delicate Dumplings. New York Times, Nov 6, 2024, at page D6.
https://dnyuz.com/2024/11/05/at- ... ings-is-hit-or-miss

Note:
(a) So far, this review is not yet translated into Chinese and appears in cn.nytimes.com
(b) "The xiao long bao, said to have originated in Nanxiang [上海市嘉定区南翔镇] more than a century ago, is a balancing act of wrapper, filling and soup. Its nucleus, a loose-knit mound of fatty meat, is speckled with jellied cubes of chilled broth that must stay solid while being quickly wrapped. * * * mall plates of vegetables came first: snappy cabbage [高麗菜], silky spinach [菠菜] and crisp green beans suffused with garlic; floppy curls of vinegary wood-ear mushrooms [涼拌雲耳 ('木耳，經汆燙冰鎮，再佐以枸杞與薑調味，微酸帶甜' -- 汆 definition: 將食物放入沸水中煮一下，隨即取出* * * 如： * * * 「汆羊肉」')]; a pyramid of chile-dotted cucumber rounds [辣味黃瓜]. All proved reliably excellent on every visit.  The noodles, too, were very fine, especially the egg-yellow strands in fragrant Taiwanese soup with wobbly chunks of braised beef [紅燒牛肉麵 whose name in English: 'Braised Beef Noodle Soup' (with house-made egg noodles)]. * * * I lifted a pork xiao long bao, its taut skin bulging with heady, savory soup, and eased it tenderly into a wide porcelain spoon. Mindful of the instructions placed on every table to prevent newbies from staining their shirts, I dabbed ginger and vinegar on top, nibbled a hole in the swirled knot [of the flour skin] and blew on it carefully. I slurped, and I understood. * * * The pork dumplings, centered on brawny Kurobuta meat (a Japanese version of Berkshire pork) * * * The non-soup dumplings were nearly as impressive, including plump wontons in a fiery dressing, pink kimchi-pork dumplings [黑豚泡菜豬肉蒸餃 Kimchi & Kurobuta Pork Dumplings] that exploded with gorgeous funk, and chewy, earthy black sesame dumplings [either 芝麻包(子) or 芝麻小籠包, both sweet and both coming in steamers 蒸籠] dunked in frothy sea salt cream [which is seasoning]."
(i) "is speckled with jellied cubes of chilled broth"

I have never had 小籠包 in my life -- when I grew up, my family was poor. But I read the ingredients of Trader Joe's "Steamed Chicken Soup Dumplings” that says gelatin.
(ii) According to two librarians at Boston Public Library, the adjective snappy means crisp, crunchy.
(iii) The menu 鼎泰豐菜單 in Taiwan's Din Tai Fung says simply: 高麗菜, 空心菜 etc.
https://www.dintaifung.com.tw/food_show.php
(A) 高麗菜
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/捲心菜
("中國大陸稱捲心菜，香港稱椰菜 * * * [section 2 歷史 section 2.1 台灣:] 高麗菜由荷蘭人傳入荷屬台灣，台灣閩南語稱為「高麗菜」（閩南語：ko-lê-tshài），源自結球甘藍的荷蘭語「Kool」")

Dutch-English dictionary:
* kool (noun feminine): "* * * cabbage * * * "
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kool
(B) 菠菜 is very different from 空心菜, which is also in Din Tai Fung menu in Taiwan.

空心菜 is "water spinach" in English and "Ipomoea aquatica" in binomial nomenclature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea_aquatica
("hollow cavity within the stem")

Spinach and "water spinach" are not only in different family (just above genus) but in different order (above family).
(iv) "heady, savory soup"

Heady (adj): "2 a: tending to intoxicate or make giddy or elated  <heady wine>  <being in such distinguished company was a heady experience>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heady
(v) Berkshire pig
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_pig
("It originated in the English county of Berkshire [London's neighbor on its western border], for which it is named. * * * [in Japan] the meat may be marketed as Kurobuta [黒豚] pork, and can command a premium price")

The kanji 黒豚 jas Chinese pronunciation ton and Japanese pronunciation buta.
(vi) "The non-soup dumplings were nearly as impressive, including plump wontons in a fiery dressing"
(A) A dressing? Like salad dressing? This means that wontons at issue are dry, rather than submerged in soup.
(B) This is 紅油炒手 (紅油 delivers the spicy taste).

Two types of 紅油炒手 are offered: 蝦肉 and 菜肉 (vegetable and pork), whose corresponding non-spicy varieties are named 蝦肉餛飩 and 菜肉餛飩.
(C) 紅油抄手
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/紅油抄手
("四川話中把餛飩稱作抄手 * * * 雖然抄手發展自餛飩，但如今以成為一種獨立食品，抄手的皮比餛飩更加薄而潤滑，大小比餛飩更小一些")
(D) 川味家常。簡易美味的❤紅油炒手❤醬汁. Yummy Mummy 俏媽咪潔思米, Sept 5, 2016
https://yummymum.tw/2016-09-05-982/
("餛飩是中國北方的麵食，四川稱為炒手，據說因為冬天太冷，四川人包餛飩的方法將之二邊往中間包捲在一起，很像是二隻手相疊取暖的動作，因此稱為抄手~(但是媽咪我這次用的抄手不是這個形狀唷~)   喜歡吃辣的四川人，放了辣椒油來搭配。於是有了紅油抄手這道料理呢~")


(c) on food reviewer's later visits of the same restaurant: "The xiao long bao, when they finally arrived, were deflated and slack, having leaked puddles in their basket, and the dribbles of soup left inside the skins were hardly enough to moisten the chalky meat. Cod-filled dumplings [鱈魚蒸餃 Cod Dumplings] were so bland my friend asked to have them boxed up to take back for her sick dog (four stars from the dog). Shanghai-style rice cakes were threaded with hard nubs of overcooked shrimp [上海蝦炒年糕, besides 上海雞肉炒年糕 (Shanghai Rice Cakes with Chicken); there is a zh.wikipedia.org for 炒年糕 (which does not say Cantonese 炒年糕; Cantonese does 炒年糕, alone without other ingredients, and eat it sweet (no sugar added)] and not much by way of seasoning.   On my next two visits, the food ranged from quite good (the pork sticky-rice wrap [黑豚鮮肉粽子 Kurobuta Pork Sticky Rice Wrap]) to lackluster (oddly odorless truffle dumplings [黑豚松露小籠包 Truffle & Kurobuta Pork Xiao Long Bao]) to awful (soggy pork chops [炸排骨 Fried Pork Chop], wan noodles"

dribble (n; verb etymology: frequentative of drib): "a tiny or insignificant bit or quantity"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dribble