Dumpling heaven in Chinatown

Mere mention of a "soup dumpling" sighting is often enough to make a serious adventure diner twitch, activating a primal tracker instinct more commonly reserved for tasks like pursuing the ivory-billed woodpecker.

Exceedingly uncommon around here, and even rarer done well, this Shanghai treat is a sleight of broth and dough that puts the "soup" inside a steam-puffed beggar's purse twisted up tight and tidy.

This curiosity (usually noted as "Shanghai steamed buns" on menus) has long incited road-trip quests, most often to New York's Chinatown, where Joe's Shanghai is among those that made them famous. And the first question is inevitably: How did the broth find its way inside to begin with? The second, and perhaps more pressing dilemma, though, is how to eat the equivalent of a boiling-hot broth balloon without getting scalded in the process.

It's tricky, and there are numerous techniques, but even the most agile chopstick maven is bound to splatter a shirt or two at first. My approach works well, but it takes a sure hand to delicately grasp the dumpling near its neck, nibble a hole in the top to sip the juice, and then swab the remaining dumpling in ginger dip without adding a stain of black vinegar to the injury of errant soup.

The good news is that you no longer have to travel to Manhattan to practice. In fact, stop just a few feet shy of the passenger line loading onto the bargain bus from Philly's Chinatown to New York's, and you will find the dumpling dive of our dreams: Dim Sum Garden.

There were soup dumplings galore, as fine as I've ever had. Hearty hand-shaved noodles basked in bowls of broth and plates of brisket gravy. Salt-baked shrimp were skewered on a stick, crackly crisp with seasoning but still sweet inside. Unusual sui mai dumplings shaped like hourglasses were filled with addictive sticky rice laced with crumbled pork. I even found perhaps the best scallion pancakes in town - their cracker-brown exteriors sandwiching flaky white layers of tender scallion-flecked dough.