After growing tired of hearing people bicker over which Shanghai shops serve the best soup dumplings, former chef Christopher St. Cavish conducted a scientific study.
Christopher St. Cavish
Precision tools —
St. Cavish's study analyzes the ratio of soup and meat filling to the thickness of the dumpling skin. He used a digital scale to weigh dumpling parts in grams and a digital caliper to measure the wrapper in fractions of a millimeter.
Christopher St. Cavish
Dumpling files —
St. Cavish recorded measurements before plugging the numbers into a self-derived formula to arrive at a final score for each restaurant.
Christopher St. Cavish
The index —
St. Cavish chomped on more than 300 soup dumplings to create his definitive Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index, available online.