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The name Joe's Shanghai is inextricably bound to the restaurant's famous soup dumplings—little doughy beggars’ purses filled with pork or crab meat plus soup (the soup is inside the dumplings). Wonderful as these morsels are, though, the rest of Joe's admittedly pricey menu should not be overlooked. The subtle and sophisticated cuisine of Shanghai makes a mockery of the Hunan/Cantonese/Sichuan hybrid glop served at most Chinese restaurants. With the opening of so many branches, consistency has suffered somewhat, and the Midtown outpost lacks the character of the others, but Joe's remains among New York's top Shanghais. — Steven A. Shaw

How do they get the soup inside those dumplings? Easy: They thicken it with gelatin and put it in solid. Then, when the dumplings are steamed, voila: soup!

Drunken chicken, $8.25; crab meat with pork steamed soup buns, $8.50; stewed bean curd with crab meat, $19.95; lion’s head pork meatballs, $20.35