I promised and I swore and I promised a second time I’d never write about soup dumplings again. So today I went to Man Long Chu for lunch, which promises to elevate the steamed little bun into a snack worthy of an art deco environment, a manager in a suit and a waiter who pours vinegar from the bottle into your dish as if he’s decanting a vintage Lafite. And I’m going to write about it because, well, I made that cross and so it’s mine to bear.

*** This little scene plays out over and over at the store’s only location, a two-storefront, second-story room on Yongkang Lu, above a fancy gelato shop (same owner) and next to the dry cleaner who has been there for three decades. Stopping in today, I loitered on the first floor, where the chefs in their bright whites were on display (*ahem* dintaifung) and paying attention, ushering me up the staircase to a small room full of well-dressed people eating Shanghainese dim sum, pleats and folds and hair and jackets all perfectly and evenly coiffed. A sharply dressed manager in a buttoned-up suit cleared a marble table for me, and I settled in next to table of 20-something young women talking about all the internet-famous food places they’d been to. The menu was short and to the point, with a few kinds of soup dumplings (pork, shrimp, crab) and a few other snacks. The décor, a beautiful mix of hardwood floors, terrazzo, and large bronze frames with pastel blue, pink and yellow panels. 1930s chic. But I do one thing well, and it’s not interior design. I eat dumplings, and I can say with some conviction that Man Long Chun’s aren’t for me. Technically, they have thin skins and a lot of filling, but I couldn’t tell you how much; my calipers broke months ago, and if I’m not done writing about soup dumplings, at least I’m done measuring them. Taste-wise, they went overboard on the white pepper, and texture-wise, way too loose. I couldn’t get more than two of the crab dumplings down, and I love crab dumplings, but something about these didn’t agree with me. Still! I’m just one voice in the vast soup dumpling universe, and I appreciate Man Long Chun’s attempt at dressing up soup dumplings into something worthy of a padded chair and a hardwood floor, something with a little flair, and so, though I promise not to write about it, I’ll be back in a couple of months to see how they’re doing. *** Man Long Chun is at 73 Yongkang Lu, near Xiangyang Nan Lu