Xiaolongbao appears as a signature dish in 1 Taiwan cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Xiaolongbao · Taipei
Xiaolongbao is the ten-pleat Shanghai soup dumpling that Din Tai Fung canonised on Xinyi Road in 1972. Hot pork-and-soup parcels, dipped in ginger and black vinegar.
Xiaolongbao arrived in Taipei with the 1949 mainland refugees from Jiangsu province. Yang Bing-yi and Lai Pen-mei opened Din Tai Fung as a cooking-oil shop at 194 Xinyi Road in 1958, pivoted to dumplings in 1972 when tinned cooking oil killed the retail business. The signature ten-pleat fold and 21-gram weight standard are house inventions of the early 1980s. The New York Times named the Xinyi Road original one of the world's top 10 restaurants in 1993. The chain now operates in 14 countries, but the Xinyi Road original is the canonical pilgrimage.
Where to eat in Taipei:
- Din Tai Fung Xinyi
- Kao Chi
- Hangzhou Xiao Long Tang Bao
- Yang Shin Vegetarian