Five years ago, Michael Hoang didn’t know what a soup dumpling was. Now, he sees them in his sleep.
Photography by Kathy Tran
The steamed dumplings are stuffed with savory meats and pockets of gelatinous broth that melt into soup as they are cooked. The dish, also called xiao long bao, originated from a suburb of Shanghai, and first came to the United States via Chinatown eateries before being picked up by retailers like Trader Joe’s in the early 2020s. Thanks to the dumplings’ recurring TikTok virality, the store often sells out of the pork and chicken varieties offered in the frozen aisle.
But at Fortune House, where soup dumplings are the star of the menu, you won’t find frozen, mass-produced xiao long bao. The restaurant makes the dumplings fresh to order, and they can be stuffed with pork, crab or truffle. An exposed prep area next to the restaurant’s dining room allows customers to watch the intricate pleating that goes into forming every individual dumpling.
“(Soup dumpling) shops are popping up everywhere now,” says Hoang, the hospitality director of Fortune House. “We were offering something that wasn’t really available yet, but the hype really grew and created the demand that we are seeing.”
Fortune House started as a mom-and-pop style Chinese restaurant in Irving, and the current owners took over in 2014. In 2023, they brought the Shanghainese menu to Lowest Greenville. At the time, the street was missing a sit-down Chinese food option after the Asian fusion spot Gung Ho closed during the pandemic.
Hoang and his partners aimed to preserve the “nostalgic feel” epitomized by the Irving store at the Greenville Avenue location, whilst still creating an elevated experience that felt trendy and catered towards the area’s young audience. In the main dining room, neon red signage imitates the bustling urban streets in Asia known for street food; red lantern lighting and vibey ironwork decorate the space, which is split into several different dining areas.
While xiao long bao is a “staple” of the Shanghai diet, Fortune House offers a variety of other regional dishes that “you can’t find (at) other places.”
The tea smoked duck ($26/$42), for instance, is a piling plate of sugar-and-spice-crusted duck smoked in aromatic jasmine tea and served alongside bird buns. The spicy string beans ($14) are a bestseller, and the steamed whole fish (priced at market value) and spicy mapo tofu ($14) are meant for sharing. Even the chili oil that the restaurant serves on each table is made in-house, although the topping is more smoky than spicy, unlike typical chili oils.
“Chinese food is really made for family style. I don’t think a lot of people realize that because a lot of times, when you go to a lot of Chinese restaurants, everybody’s ordering their own dish,” Hoang says. “In Asian culture, everybody comes together, and then they share food.”
Fortune House now has its third expansion, this time to Preston Hollow. The restaurant opened its latest location in Preston Hollow Village late September, incorporating some of the design from the Greenville store with this location’s open concept and 20-foot-tall ceilings. The menu, though, won’t be messed with, and Hoang says an exposed prep room has already been guaranteed for those who delight in watching the creation of their dumplings.
As restaurants across Dallas have faced uncertainty due to changing customer patterns and rising costs, Hoang says he sees Preston Hollow as a place where the culinary scene continues to thrive.
“Preston Hollow has gone through a lot of changes since COVID, but I really do feel like the neighborhood is in a really good place right now,” Hoang said.
The restaurant is considering adding some healthier options to the Preston Hollow menu to accommodate the neighborhood’s workout class culture. Fortune House also plans to stay open later than many of the eateries currently in the area. Whereas many consider Taco Bell and McDonald’s to be the late-night standard, Hoang says customers should be able to find “good Chinese food and dumplings until midnight.”
Hoang credits social media with generating much of the interest in Fortune House. A few years ago, several North Texas foodie influencers made videos highlighting the restaurant’s soup dumplings. One video alone was shared more than 20,000 times.
“When people think of Chinese food, they think of the same old things, like orange chicken or beef and broccoli,” Hoang says. “But right now, especially with TikTok and Instagram, everybody is more willing to try new things and different things. They want to find out whether, ‘If this person likes this dish, will I like it too?’ … and that kind of fuels the demand and interest into Fortune House.”
Fortune House, 7825 Firefall Way #100, fortunehousecuisine.com
