There was much excitement in the New York dumpling community when Din Tai Fung announced it would open an outpost in Manhattan — the Taiwanese restaurant chain’s 182nd opening worldwide and its 16th location in the United Statesrich711, but the first one east of Las Vegas. In July, thousands of hopefuls kept vigil at their laptops to score reservations as they were released, only to watch them vanish in minutes.

A dumpling lover faces long odds at Din Tai Fung.

The first restaurant opened in 1972 in Taipei, specializing in xiao long bao, or Shanghai-style soup dumplings (also called steamed buns or juicy buns). As a global chain, it now offers a more expansive menu, but it’s still the xiao long bao that pull in the fans. Din Tai Fung’s famously dainty dumplings are regarded as paragons of the form.

ImageIn a glassed-in kitchen set into the dining room, diners can watch the dumpling chefs hand-form 16,000 xiao long bao per day.Credit...Nico Schinco for The New York TimesImageEach chicken xiao long bao gushes with gingery, umami broth.Credit...Nico Schinco for The New York Times

The xiao long bao, said to have originated in Nanxiang 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. That wrapper can vary from translucent to fluffy, depending on the style. The jelly melts as the dumplings steam, filling them with hot, savory soup that cascades thrillingly across the tongue when you slurp.

Precision and uniformity are the goal at Din Tai Fung, where each xiao long bao weighs exactly 21 grams, the gossamer wrappers pleated 18 times. At the New York branch you can watch the dumpling makers speedily rolling, pinching, stuffing and twisting the dough in a glassed-in prep room. A team of about 34 chefs produces an astonishing 16,000 dumplings a day, and over the course of five visits I’ve become obsessed with trying to get one of the good ones.

ImageBuilt into a 25,000 square-foot space that once housed Mars 2112, the new Din Tai Fung in New York is the largest restaurant in the chain.Credit...Nico Schinco for The New York Times

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