SOUP DUMPLINGS in New York: Shanghai You Garden

I am a sucker for sampler plates. I used to love Pu Pu Platters as a kid. And if a brewery doesn’t have a flight option, I’m at a loss for what to do.

So it was a no brainer for me to order the colorful Lucky Six Soup Dumplings at Shanghai You Garden, a longtime staple of Flushing that I was visiting for the first time.

I was seated on the third floor, which felt like an overflow space, but I was immediately joined by many other tables. I knew I was a trailblazer.

When the waiter came by, I confidently gave them my pick and they immediately pointed me to the lunch special and asked me about which sampler I would like for free. The truth was this would be one of many stops on my eating around Queens and so I didn’t want the extra food. That did not seem to compute. He kept fighting me and telling me the additional food was free. I tried to explain that I didn’t want to waste the food and so I would only have the soup dumplings.

I thought I had communicated well, but after my assortment of Xiao long bar showed up, the waitress then brought me an entire second order of pork soup dumplings. I said I didn’t want it and she told me that it was free. I wasn’t going to eat it so I begged her to take it back and give it to someone else to avoid wasting the food. Hopefully that worked.

I don’t want it to seem that I am ungrateful or that I don’t like free food, but I also know my stomach’s limits and am way past the point in my life of consuming food just because it is put in front of me. I’d like it to end up in somebody’s mouth who really needs it.

So points to Shanghai You Garden for having a great lunch deal, but I just wanted to eat the six soup dumplings and move on.

The spread was beautiful with an array of colors.

Squash with pork and shrimp, which was dyed a shade of lime, was first and really nice. The vegetable brought a nice sweetness and texture to the dumpling.

I followed that up with a pink sweet shrimp and pork bun. The seafood and porcine combo balanced each other nicely and had a very pleasant flavor.

The black and white dumpling featured umami-laden mushrooms and a funky earthy quality. Since I am partial to fungi, this was by far my favorite.

Most surprising to me was the blue-grey dumpling with pork and seasoned with Indian aster, an herbaceous green. I had never tasted anything quite like this and not sure I liked it or not. The vegetal quality was very bitter and had a slightly smoky ashy flavor. On paper, that seems like something I would enjoy, but the unusual bitterness did not come easily.

The all red dumpling warned of the spicy pork filling inside and it did indeed have quite a kick. Its juiciness revealed chili mingling with the pork inside.

Finally, the classic yellow dumpling with bits of crab innards sticking out on top signified the most traditional of the Xiao long bao. After all the flavors, this was intense and briny and really showcases the flavor of crab.

I didn’t mention the soup level, but I found them all a bit light on the soup, which is ok if you are concerned about too much hot liquid. While these could have been a bit hotter and stuffed with more liquid. this was a fun sampling and most of the offerings were flavorful and a nice change from the usual.

Does Shanghai You Garden have the best soup dumplings in NY? I enjoyed tasting them all. While some were mild and pleasant, others were very intensely flavored and surprising. I thought there could be a tad bit more soup in each specimen, but the flavors and chewy skins were very nice. 7.5 out of 10.