The XL soup dumpling at the new Dim Sum Garden is more than just a bigger dumpling

It landed on my table like a king-sized water bed, waves of hot broth rippling back and forth beneath a delicate sheet of dough that sealed this massive soup dumpling in a pleated twist. Cradled inside a bamboo steamer and spanning its entire six-inch diameter, this buzzy new draw to Dim Sum Garden and its new Chinatown location is the largest of its ilk in Philadelphia: the XL soup dumpling. This jumbo-sized rendition of a Shanghainese xiao long bao is as delicious as it is potentially hazardous to eat — at least, without some warning. Just ask my scalded taste buds.

That boba-style straw served on the side is necessary for you to sip the broth hidden inside this water balloon-sized dumpling. Trust me, though, you’re going to want to wait a few minutes before plunging in because the soup inside is piping hot after 12 minutes in the steamer. My server neglected to mention any need to hesitate, so I pierced the dumpling skin with that wide straw, hit “record” on my phone, took a deep and hearty slurp... Yowwweee! (”Are you OK?” my wife asked after my phone crashed to the table and I tried to swallow without causing a larger scene).

Scorched taste buds are a potential hazard of the eating profession. And I take full responsibility for my lack of common sense — especially after decades of practice of eating regular-sized soup dumplings without burning my lips or exploding broth across my shirt.

The xiao long bao is one of world’s most ingenious foods, a beggar’s purse containing meat and broth in a brilliant combination of form, function, flavor, and surprise. They were created over a century ago when a chef in Shanghai decided to blend ground pork stuffing with a gelatin-rich soup that liquefies upon steaming — the secret to its soupy magic. Philly got its first specialist in 2007 when chef Tom Guo opened the original Dim Sum Garden beside a bus stop inside the 11th Street tunnel. Sally Song and her mother, Shizhou Da, who trained with Shanghainese dumpling specialists, took over that location the following year before moving to a larger space on Race Street in 2013.

A decade later, Song and her mother have moved again, this time buying a building just a few doors west. They’ve doubled their seating capacity to 200 in a long, bright space with mezzanine seating and a molded ceiling with undulating, illuminated curves. Opened in December, and already humming with customers, it’s just the kind of high-energy destination dining room Chinatown deserves at a moment when the neighborhood, unburdened from the looming uncertainty of the now-canceled Sixers arena project nearby, can charge ahead with renewed momentum from the next generation of entrepreneurs.

To celebrate its grand opening, Dim Sum Garden added a series of new dishes to its existing favorites. None are more mesmerizing than the XL soup dumpling, which is not yet on the printed menu. Its debut is partly a desire to introduce intrigue. Soup dumplings, a curiosity in Philly when Dim Sum Garden was one of the few places to offer them, are now ubiquitous on Chinese menus across the region. Over time, I’ve found Dim Sum Garden’s standard versions to be solid, but the broth inside too sweet for my taste. This is not the case, however, with new large format rendition, which is four times larger than a traditional dumpling. It requires both a separate dough — a notch thicker to accommodate its heft, and rolled to order — and also a different broth, steeped for five hours in mixed proteins (chicken, shrimp, and pork) to produce a more savory profile that Song says works best for the portion size.

Once enough of my taste buds had recovered their feeling sensation, I enjoyed the depth and richness of that soup, which is also layered over five hours of cooking with steeped ginger and scallion. You can add the traditional accoutrements of black vinegar and chili oil to give that broth some extra pizzazz, but I didn’t find it necessary. The golfball-sized nugget of meat bobbing inside was so hard from the long cooking time that it seemed beside the point. (It remains a work in progress in the quest to retain some tenderness.) Song says her mother is also in the process of creating a vegetarian and chicken version.

What intrigued me most, however, was how, as that dumpling progressively opened wider with every nibble and sip, a paper wrapper around that dumpling inside the steamer basket still managed to maintain most of the broth. As the noodle walls collapsed into shreds and mingled with the juice, it became another good dish altogether: this soup dumpling had become dumpling soup.

— Craig LaBan

XL soup dumpling, $12, at Dim Sum Garden, 1024 Race St., Philadelphia, PA 19107, 215-873-0258; dimsumgardenphilly.com