Din Tai Fung is a world famous restaurant that has many branches all over the world. It is originated from Taiwan and is well known for its Xiao Long Bao or soup dumpling. There are many Din Tai Fung restaurants on the west coast of United States. Whenever we go to Din Tai Fung, we always have to wait in line for at least 2 hours to get our seat! This is how popular this restaurant is! During the Chinese New Year of 2017, we decided to do a 3 hour road trip to Bellevue and have lunch at Din Tai Fung!
This time we left Portland extremely early at 6:30AM so that we can get to Din Tai Fung around 9:30 and be the first in line. When we got there, we were surprised that there weren't that many people there! We figure that it is probably because of the second Din Tai Fung restaurant that recently opened in Seattle which have diverged some traffic to there. This is good news for the customers so that customers don't have to wait in line for so long! While waiting in line, we could see the employees making Xiao Long Bao through the clear glass wall. Each employee is assigned to a particular task and all the work were streamlined. By 10AM, the restaurant opened and the waitress led us to one of the best seat beside the windows! This time we ordered Pork Xiao Long Bao, Shanghai Pork Fried Rice Cake, Pork Vegetable Dumpling, Port Shrimp Pot Stickers, Red Bean/Taro Xiao Long Bat for dessert, and a pot of Jasmin tea of course.
Few minutes later, our first serving of food is here! Pork Xiao Long Bao is here! This is quite fast! The kitchen is probably constantly streaming Pork Xiao Long Bao since each table will at least order one! The waitress also brought over shredded ginger for each of us. One thing I don't like is that if we want more ginger, it actually cost extra. Pork Xiao Long Bao at Din Tai Fung is known for having 18 folds. I have actually counted myself and every single Xiao Long Bao does have 18 folds on them! This Xiao Long Baa's skin is also very thin and can break easily. So we have to pick them up gently so that it does not break. There are 2 ways to eat Xiao Long Bao. You can take a small bite first, then suck out all the soup in there. Be careful that the soup is hot! The second way is to do what I did. I simply put the whole thing in my mouth to make sure the soup does not drip out.
The next dish coming up is Shanghai Pork Fried Rice Cake. The rice cake is a well known dish that people must have for Chinese New Year. It is chewy and has a lot of textured flavor when it is stir fried with soy sauce and other meat and vegetables. The one at Din Tai Fung is not different. It is extremely chewy and has absorbed all the flavors from the stir fry. We really loved it!
Now here comes the traditional Pork Vegetable Dumpling! One must have dumpling during Chinese New Year because eating dumplings symbolizes having the good fortune for the coming year! Dumpling may look different when you order them at different restaurant. The one at Din Tai Fung is a bit bigger in size but still flavorful. The skin of the dumpling is not thick either, which I really like.
The Shrimp Pork Pot Stickers are very similar to dumplings but different. Instead of streaming it, it is being pan fried. Pot stickers are usually longer as well. Before I can take a good picture at it, other people have already took two pot stickers and ate it unfortunately. The pot stickers at Din Tai Fung is fried perfectly. I really love it because of its crunchiness on the skin. It also comes with dipping sauce. The dipping sauce is a mix of soy sauce and peanut sauce. So if you are allergic to peanut, be sure to pay attention to this.
After all the main course meal, here comes our final dessert dish! This is Red Bean/Taro Xiao Long Bao! It usually only comes with 1 flavor with 10 for each serving, but we asked to have 2 flavors with 5 of each flavor in a serving. In the photo above, the one with darker color is red bean and lighter color is taro. You can see how thin the skin is and each Xiao Long Bao is full of fillings! I would say I like the Red Bean Xiao Long Bao more because it is more flavorful. Din Tai Fung also offers Sesame Xiao Long Bao and Chocolate Mochi Xiao Long Bao. I have tried Sesame Xiao Long Bao before and it is probably my favorite! I have not tried Chocolate Mochi Xiao Long Bao because is is twice as more expensive!
Overall, this is an amazing meal. Din Tai Fung definitely offers the best Xiao Long Bao in the world! We can only hope that one day Din Tai Fung will have a restaurant in Portland as well so that we don't have to travel so far just for lunch!
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