A Flushing dumpling institution just planted its flag in Middlesex County. Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao opened a new location at 4901 Stelton Road in South Plainfield, New Jersey, bringing its hand-pleated soup dumplings and Shanghainese menu to a Hadley Center storefront just off Interstate 287.
A Coordinated North Jersey Double-Launch
The South Plainfield opening, first reported by Central New Jersey News, landed in the same week the chain opened its first Bergen County outpost on Level 3 of the American Dream complex in East Rutherford, according to Boozy Burbs. The pairing effectively amounts to a coordinated double-launch across North Jersey, with one store anchoring a mega-mall entertainment complex and the other tucked into a suburban retail power center. Hadley Center itself is no sleepy strip mall — the 540,152-square-foot center sees daily traffic counts of 29,000 vehicles on Stelton Road and 113,000 vehicles on nearby Interstate 287 at Exit 5, per 2026 commercial leasing records from National Realty & Development Corp. The center, anchored by Target and Kohl's, also sits near Rutgers University's Piscataway campuses.
Inside, the South Plainfield location follows the format that has made Nan Xiang a Michelin Guide recommendation nine years running, according to the same Central New Jersey News report. Diners can watch a show kitchen where chefs mix, roll, fill, and hand-pleat each xiao long bao before steaming it to order. That hand-pleating tradition runs deep: proper xiao long bao are folded 18 times to seal the broth inside the wrapper, a technique tracing back to Nanxiang, the historic canal town in Shanghai's Jiading District that gave the restaurant its name, according to Metro Philadelphia.
From Flushing Original to National Growth Machine
Nan Xiang's roots go back to 2006, when Eddie Zheng and Michael Ma opened the original shop in Flushing, Queens, according to WAG Magazine, which notes the company now employs roughly 500 workers across its restaurant portfolio. Hoodline previously covered that Flushing flagship as a top spot for affordable Shanghainese food in the neighborhood, and later as it moved to One Fulton Square.
The chain's suburban expansion strategy actually traces back to pandemic-era improvisation. When COVID-19 lockdowns shuttered dining rooms in 2020, co-founder Michael Ma personally drove frozen soup dumpling orders to parking lot meetups across New Jersey, Long Island, and Connecticut, according to Nation's Restaurant News. Those makeshift meetups revealed suburban demand the company hadn't tapped before, and the model eventually produced both full-service restaurants and smaller 1,200-to-1,500-square-foot Express units.
Cherry Hill First, Then a Rapid Multi-State Sprint
New Jersey wasn't an accident. Nan Xiang made its state debut in December 2022 with a full-service restaurant at Towne Place at Garden State Park in Cherry Hill, according to a South Jersey Food Scene account of the timeline. Since then, the brand has aggressively targeted high-volume suburban shopping hubs and mega-malls, from Hadley Center to American Dream, taking advantage of dense arterial traffic and strong regional demographics.
That growth has moved fast this year alone. Nan Xiang opened its second Maryland location, a 6,000-square-foot, 160-seat restaurant with an open kitchen and 24 outdoor patio seats, at National Harbor in July, according to Patch. That same month, the chain opened a 6,500-square-foot, 193-seat flagship on Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains, New York, featuring pagoda birdcage decor and robotic serving assistants, per WAG Magazine's reporting. In August, Nan Xiang converted a former Buffalo Wild Wings at the Mall of Georgia in Buford into a 6,000-square-foot, 200-seat restaurant — its largest Southern footprint, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which noted co-founder Michael Ma's comment that suburban Buford mirrors the cultural diversity of flagship Flushing. Hoodline previously reported on that Buford opening.
A Menu Built for Both Newcomers and Regulars
Just days before the South Plainfield opening, Nan Xiang entered the Midwest for the first time, opening a 6,667-square-foot, 135-seat restaurant at 33 W. Ontario St. in Chicago's River North neighborhood, according to Chicago Star Media. That report puts the brand's current U.S. footprint at 14 locations, with 10 more in development — a pace that stretches from East Rutherford's mall crowds to Chicago's downtown core in a matter of days.
At the South Plainfield location, the menu draws on that same Shanghainese foundation. The signature Lucky Six Soup Dumplings arrive as an assortment of six naturally colored wrappers filled with pork; crab and pork; chicken; pork and truffle; luffa, shrimp and pork; and scallop and pork, according to Central New Jersey News. The rest of the menu spans traditional breakfast items like fried dough sticks with warm soybean milk and northern-style pastries, alongside noodle dishes, wok-fired stir-fries, pan-fried pork buns, scallion pancakes, dim sum, vegetarian dishes and house-made fruit teas — a lineup the report says draws guests from around the world to whichever Nan Xiang location happens to be closest.
