Xiao Long Bao Zi(小笼包子), or usually called Xiao Long(小笼) or Xiao Long Bao(小笼包) by Chinese, is a very popular snack in Shanghai. It is served in almost every Shanghai Cuisine Restaurant, as well as a lot of restaurants of other cuisines.
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Xiao Long Bao Zi is a kind of small dumpling. Some actually call it Soup Dumpling. It is a small pork ball wrapped by flour. The wrapper of a well-made Xiao Long Bai Zi has to be very thin, alomost transparent. However, the wrapper should still be sturdy enough to hold the pork ball, and a lot of soup inside. The soup of a well-made Xiao long Bao Zi should be as much as being able to fill in a spoon.
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The best practice to eat a Xiao Long Bao Zi is to put a whole one into your mouth when it is warm, be careful, not when it is hot. At the first bite, the soup inside will fill our mouth with a splendid rich taste of well cooked pork.
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The cooking method is to steam the raw Xiao Long Bao Zi within a small basket, which is how it was named, "Xiao long" means "little basket". There are some variations to the original Xiao Long Bao Zi, popular ones are with crab meat, shrimp meat, or mixed crab+pork, shrimp+pork.