Try Din Tai Fung For A Unique Experience

I'm always on the search for unique and interesting restaurants for my once a month lunch bunch.  In December we dined at the new Din Tai Fung, a dumpling restaurant that is famous around the world.  We all left after a wonderful meal, praising this restaurant as one of our favorites.  It's not for anyone that is looking for a traditional Chinese meal.  This restaurant is mostly dim sum, noodle dishes and soups, and everything is meant to share.  The wait staff is expertly trained to help you order and show you how to eat dumplings, and how much to order.  We ordered lots of food, and the meal, with tax and tip, was about $19 per person..

Din Tai Fung began in Taipei, Taiwan in 1958 as a cooking oil retail shop.  In 1972 it was transformed into a full fledged restaurant, specializing in soup, dumplings and noodles.  Today, the restaurant is found in many cities in California and Washington, in addition to many Asian locations, including Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia and Indonesia.

Our wait person was Phoebe, who gave us some excellent suggestions, and staggered the delivery of our food so we always had some hot food on the table.  Some of the items we ordered were pan fried green beans with garlic, pork dumplings (world famous), pork bao, chicken fried rice, and my favorite, noodles with pork sauce.  For dessert, we had some chocolate filled dumplings which were absolutely delicious, and taro root and mung bean baos.  I love these sweet baos, but I was probably the only one that did.

The restaurant is so popular you must plan in advance and make reservations on Yelp.  Otherwise, you will stand in a long line.  They do take walk ins, but be prepared to wait.  It is in the newly renovated UTC shopping center, and is a real standout.  I highly recommend it.