Din Tai Fung

Although the one Michelin star restaurant doesn’t really serve traditional Cantonese style dim sums, it still scores high on my list in this category. Not only famous for their ‘siu long bau’ (piping hot steamed pork dumplings), their small dishes are exquisite and refreshing - a fine choice for a change if you find Cantonese style dim sums too oily. The only downside is the dim sum menu isn’t huge but I tend to focus on quality no quantity. 

 [Siu Long Bau]

To start with, my personal favourite dish is ”香干馬蘭頭”- a finely chopped vegetable called Kalimeris indica (Ma Lan Tou in Chinese) with dried tofu. Din Tai Fung serves the best Ma Lan Tou! The flavor is subtle yet gets stronger after every bite. Other great dishes include the cold noodles with shredded chicken and cucumber in a peanut and sesame sauce – again here’s the best place to try this dish as the dressing is just right; braised “cow-fu” – it has an acquired taste so may be not for everyone; wanton soup and of course the ‘siu long bau’. All these dishes mentioned are served in thousands of other restaurants but Din Tai Fung just do them very well. Hence they are so successful and have branches all over the world. Their best-selling dish steamed pork dumplings have a semi-transparent pastry, not doughy like most restaurants do because with soup inside the dumplings, it’s easy to split when you try to lift the dumpling up with a pair of chopsticks if the pastry is too fine. The dumplings are made in bite-size so the soup won’t ooze out and burn your mouth when you try to eat it. Don’t forget to eat it with dark vinegar and shredded ginger, it cuts the fat and brings out the flavor of the minced pork.

[Top: Drunken Chicken. Bottom From Left: Shredded Seaweed and Beancurd Sheet Salad; 'Cow-fu"; "Ma Lan Tou"]

[Steamed Vegetable Dumplings]

["Dan Dan" (Peanut Sauce) Noodles]

[Wonton Soup & Sweet Red Bean Buns]

For the ambience, it's what you will expect from any Chinese restaurant - it's frequented by families.  It's bright and noisy but somewhat feels intimate.  Although the long queue to get into the restaurant is long, it's also a hint that it's worth trying so don't be intimidated by it!  Average waiting time for a table is half an hour.

Din Tai Fung