Din Tai Fung

The infamous Din Tai Fung finally opened it's doors at the South Coast Plaza shopping center next to Sears. I have been to the one in Arcadia, another one opened in Glendale but both were too far to drive and fall in line.

Sandi, Ana and I travelled to South Coast Shopping Center in Costa Mesa to have lunch there. It was Ana who introduced us to this wonderful restaurant. Sandi and I have been to the one in Arcadia and ordered so much and we were just overwhelmed.

This time we gave it a lot of thought. We put Ana in charge of ordering. The Pork XiaoLongBao for $9.95 was a bargain at 10 pieces. Those were the steamed dumplings that had soup inside of it. The proper way to eat one is to pick it up with a chop stick, give it a good bath in the aged vinegar with a bit of soy sauce, rest it on the spoon  with your left hand (your right hand still holding the chop stick and the dumpling) while you take a small bite so you can sip a bit of the soup then pop the dumpling in your mouth. It is truly amazing! The liquid stuff inside is not chicken or pork stock, it comes from the fatty tissue of the pork as it is steamed.

We had to order Truffle and Pork XiaoLongBao. In my opinion, this was even more amazing as it had that earthy truffle flavor from truffles they import from Italy. This is why you only get 5 little dumplings for $22.50

Ana recommended the Shrimp and Pork Wontons with Spicy Sauce. They arrived all white as the sauce was underneath. As soon as you stirred everything, these wontons came to life. They were wonderful and went well with the Shrimp Fried Rice; super delicious with fresh and tender shrimps.

We took some Pork Chop with Fried Rice home "to go" for dinner. These chops were thin and tasted better than it looked. They too were tender that you could cut them with your spoon or fork.

I have to tell you that the following day, Sandi and I were in the area again and it happened to be lunch time so we decided to go back. The restaurant opens at 11:00 on weekdays and we were there at 10:40 a.m. and a line has already formed. By 11:00 a.m., there were a ton of people behind us!

We ordered the Pork XiaoLongBao again and the Shrimp and Pork Wontons with Spicy Sauce. We wanted to try the noodles as they looked good. We both decided on the Chicken Fried Noodles. Boy were they yummy. The only thing was we had a devil of a time trying to eat these slippery fat noodles with the chop sticks! We ended up eating them with a fork.

Din Tai Fung has locations in the state of Washington and California. They are also located in countries like Australia, Japan, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan.