A soup dumpling street food festival is coming to Manhattan

Get ready to slurp through the streets of New York.

A special new street food fair will hit Manhattan for one day this fall. Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao’s First Soup Dumpling Festival will take place on Sunday, October 6, on Sixth Avenue between 29th and 30th Streets.

From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., the block is open to pedestrians who want to sample southern Chinese cuisine, feast on soup dumplings, and even sign up for a class to learn how to make Michelin-recommended Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao’s signature dim sum. The restaurant currently has three locations around the city: in Flushing, Koreatown, and the East Village.

All ages can sign up for intimate sessions with a dumpling master to learn how to make Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao soup dumplings from scratch, starting with the homemade dough and moving on to the filling, then assembly and folding techniques. The class will also cover important Chinese dumpling history and culture, and of course, end with a tasting and take-home recipes. A $68 per person ticket includes a branded apron and to-go box. Sessions are offered at 11am, 1:30pm, and 4pm

Those looking for a more casual day of soup dumpling dipping can also hang out on the block to sample soup dumplings and more. A $20 set menu includes six of the signature Nan Xiang Soup Dumplings, plus crispy dough and soy milk to soak it all up.

An extensive a la carte menu will feature a variety of soup dumplings, including Pork Soup Dumplings, Crab Meat and Pork Soup Dumplings, Chicken Soup Dumplings, Scallop and Pork Soup Dumplings, Black Truffle and Pork Soup Dumpling, and Shrimp and Pork Soup Dumplings. Vegetarians can enjoy steamed vegetable dumplings or fried vegetable spring rolls.

Other dishes are also offered during the festival, such as cucumber salad with garlic, savory pressed tofu with Chinese celery, fried pork buns, noodles with spring onion sauce and much more.

Various soy milk based drinks are offered, including red date soy milk, and fruit tea.

Admission is free, as with any street market, but be aware that there can be queues if you want to order food, especially during the busiest meal times.

The event is an extension of Dragon Fest, which runs concurrently on Sixth Avenue and extends to 32nd Street. Billed as New York’s largest outdoor Asian food fair, the pop-up event will feature a wide variety of Asian street food, including JianBing, Tang Hu Lu, dragon beard candy, Chinese barbecue and more. The final Dragon Fest of 2024 will take place the following weekend, on Sunday, October 13 on the Upper West Side, on Broadway between 80th and 82nd Streets.