Kings of the Road

Yesterday, Larry and I went to Chinatown in search of soup dumplings. We first saw soup dumplings a few weeks ago on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, when Anthony took a trip to Shanghai. The soup dumplings he ate at Nan Xiang restaurant in Shanghai were pillows of dough enveloping a rich soup broth. The smaller variety look like they burst out soupy goodness in the mouth, and the larger ones are big enough to suck the broth out with a straw. Ever since I saw the episode, I’ve been obsessed with soup dumplings. Must have soup dumplings.

After some research, I found that Chinatown Express in Chinatown (where else, with a name like that) serves the elusive soup dumpling, although their specialty is the hand-stretched noodles you can watch them make in the window. They’ve got chickens, pigs, and ducks hanging in the window, which I think is super cool. We ordered the soup dumplings (duh), some seafood dumplings, stir-fried noodles with beef and the roasted half chicken.

The soup dumplings were…disappointing. They didn’t really have much broth in them at all. They were good for pork dumplings, but these are not the dumplings I saw on Anthony Bourdain. The noodles and the chicken were really delicious. The noodles were one of the best Chinese noodle stir-fry dishes I have had, for sure. I will definitely be back to Chinatown Express. But I guess we’ll have to go to either New York or San Fransisco for soup dumplings. Or Shanghai for the real thing. Sigh.