Din Tai Fung is a famous dim sum place that has locations
worldwide. Much as I like dim sum, I have to admit I’d never heard of it until they
opened a location near me. There was so much hype before, during and after the
opening that I never went to that location. I heard tales of 90-minute+ wait
times and “it’s not as good as the one in Southern California”, two things that
don’t make intuitive sense to me unless people who were willing to wait that
long for dim sum had never tried the So Cal location or didn’t care.
While I like dim sum as much as the next person, I could
not see myself waiting that long for a table, no matter how good the dim sum is
reputed to be. I told myself I would wait until it had been open longer and the
hype had died down but that was well over a year ago and I was still hearing
about long wait times so I never made it over there. So I took advantage of being in Hong Kong and having a Din Tai Fung within walking distance of our hotel to go try it.
After Sandra and I did our bakery trek, we both needed to
change into dry clothes back at the hotel (seriously, Mother Nature’s shower did us in) but at
least we were comfortable again on our way to lunch. We got there around 1 pm
and I was pleased to see there were no lines and no waiting. The hostess seated
us right away, taking us past the glass-enclosed cubby where their workers were
expertly making dim sum. I wanted to gawk but by then I was actually hungry.
I was used to thinking of dim sum being served in carts
being pushed around the restaurant and you flag the server who might have the
dishes you want. Uh, no, not at Din Tai Fung. It was a notch above the dim sum
cart scene in that you had a picture menu at the table that showed their
offerings and you checked off the items you wanted on a separate, disposable,
printed menu.
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| Steamed Pork Bun |
My plain eating ways led me to the typical dim sum fare:
siu mai (steamed pork dumplings), har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings) and a
steamed pork bun Sandra and I split. Sandra was a more experienced dim sum and
Din Tai Fung eater so she knew to look for the dishes that were available in
Hong Kong but might not be the same at other Din Tai Fung locations. I had
nothing to compare the Hong Kong location with so I was happy to go along. We
also ordered pork fried rice (such an innocuous name for seriously good pork)
and a gyoza-like dim sum that was, as she put in, “in a different form factor”.
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| Har Gow |
I’ll say here and now that everything was pretty good.
They served the dim sum one dish at a time so that you could eat it at its peak
warmth and freshness. The dumpling wraps were not too thick but thin, the
filling inside of each was ridiculously juicy and tasty and that was an amazing
steamed pork bun. Normally I prefer baked pork buns as I like the bread baked
more than steamed but since the steamed bun wasn’t too thick (and hence not too
filling), it was delicious and hit just the right note. Plus the filling was
perfect.
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| Siu Mai |
My favorites were the shrimp dumplings. Not only were
they cute and aesthetically pleasing with the “loot bag” look (I don’t know how
else to describe it) and the whole shrimp on top, but the dumpling wrap and
pork-and-shrimp filling were so good.
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| Pork Fried Rice |
Probably the only one I was less enthused about was the
gyoza-like dumplings in their different form factor. I liked the form factor
and the crispness of the wrapper but the filling had too much chive flavor for
my taste. It wasn’t bad but as I was getting full, I’d rather expend the
remaining room in my waistband for the other dishes.
I have no idea how the Hong Kong Din Tai Fung stacks up
against its sister locations but from my one experience, it gets multiple
thumbs up from me. I still don’t think I’d wait 90 minutes or more for it if I
had to but it’s seriously good dim sum nonetheless.
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