Browse the Ugly Dumpling soup menu — the classic Hot & Sour Soup and two clear-broth wonton soups in pork & shrimp or chicken. The Chinese starter trio every dim sum table calls for, and the bowls that anchor a meal on a cold day.
The soup category at Ugly Dumpling is intentionally minimal — three bowls, three distinct purposes. Hot & Sour Soup ($5) is the $5 starter: a $5 cup of peppery, vinegar-bright Cantonese-Sichuan crossover soup with tofu, mushroom and bamboo shoots. It's the lowest-priced item on the entire menu and the soup you order alongside XLB or dim sum almost by reflex.
The two wonton soups are the clear-broth answer to the chili-oil Wontons page. Same eight wontons, but poached in a savory pork-or-chicken stock instead of chili oil. Pork & Shrimp Wonton Soup ($11) is the Cantonese standard — eight wontons floating in a deeply seasoned clear stock with scallion. Chicken Wonton Soup ($10) is the lighter, pork-free cousin in a chicken stock. Both are full single-bowl meals if you're keeping it small.
If you're choosing: order Hot & Sour as a shared starter for the whole table (it's $5 and three diners can split it), and order the wonton soups as individual single-bowl meals when you want a lighter dinner than ramen or noodle soup.
Classic hot-and-sour with tofu, mushroom and bamboo shoots — peppery white-pepper heat, black-vinegar tang.
View dish →Eight pork-and-shrimp wontons in clear, savory pork stock with scallion. Cantonese standard.
View dish →
Eight chicken wontons in clear chicken broth — the lighter, pork-free wonton soup option.
View dish →Broth, contents, allergens, heat, calories and price.
| Dish | Broth | Contents | Heat | ~Cal | Pieces | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot & Sour Soup | Spicy-sour clear | Tofu, mushroom, bamboo, egg ribbons | ●●○○○ | 220 | 1 cup | $5 |
| Pork & Shrimp Wonton Soup | Clear pork | 8 wontons + scallion | — | 380 | 8 | $11 |
| Chicken Wonton Soup | Clear chicken | 8 wontons + scallion | — | 340 | 8 | $10 |
Hot & Sour calories are per cup; portions vary by location (cup vs bowl).
Soup is the most under-thought course in Chinese-American dining. Four habits that make every bowl better.
In Chinese tradition, soup goes in the middle of the table and gets ladled into individual bowls. The $5 Hot & Sour is sized for two-to-four-person sharing — order one for the table, not one per person.
Hot & Sour separates fast — the cornstarch thickener settles, the egg ribbons drift to the bottom. Gentle stir for 5 seconds before ladling the first bowl evens the texture out.
Each wonton wrapper holds a small reservoir of broth in its ruffles. Lift one onto your spoon, eat in one bite, sip the spoon. Skipping the spoon = wasting a third of the broth's reach.
In Chinese tradition, soup opens the meal (Cantonese style) or finishes it (northern Chinese style) — never both. At Ugly Dumpling, lean Cantonese: start with soup, then dumplings, then mains. Ramen is its own course and breaks this rule.
The two flavor pillars of Hot & Sour Soup (酸辣汤 suān là tāng) are unusual:
Hot & Sour Soup contains: wheat (soy sauce), soy, egg. May contain trace pork in the stock at some locations — confirm if vegetarian.
Wonton Soups (both): wheat, soy, sesame oil drizzle. Pork & Shrimp: pork, shellfish · Chicken: pork-free but the wonton filling contains trace pork & shrimp (Sichuan tradition) — request vegan dumplings if you need pork-free + shellfish-free.
None of the soups is gluten-free by default.
Six diner profiles, three soups, six clear answers.
Hot & Sour Soup is a Sichuan-Hunan classic that became universal U.S. Chinese-restaurant food in the 1970s — every Chinese-American menu has it. The dish predates that by centuries: it's recorded in Sichuan cookbooks from the Qing dynasty, where it was used as a digestive after heavy banquets. The American version is mostly faithful to the Sichuan original; the only major change is that U.S. kitchens use more cornstarch for a thicker body.
Wonton soup is older and Cantonese. The Hong Kong tradition of wun tun mein (wonton noodle soup) — wontons floating with thin egg noodles in a clear pork-bone stock — became the cantonese-noodle-shop standard in the 1880s. Ugly Dumpling's wonton soups follow the Cantonese clear-broth approach (wontons only, no noodles); the noodled version is on the Noodles page.
The category is short on purpose. Most Chinese restaurants pad their soup menu with egg drop, corn-and-crab, fish-maw and seaweed soups — all good, none essential. Ugly Dumpling's three-soup lineup keeps only the dishes that actually get ordered, with the rest of the soup energy moved to ramen and noodle soup bowls.
