Din Tai Fung is a Taiwanese cuisine restaurant originating from Taiwan having outlets in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, USA and UAE. It is known around the world for its xiaolongbao meaning steamed buns and has been awarded a Michelin Star in 2009.
I had been eyeing this place for quite sometime now and heard a lot about it from my friends . Finally went to their Al Ghurair Centre outlet, on entrance, the first thing I noticed was the live dumpling kitchen. Its unique from other restaurants out there but it definitely added to my excitement to try the dumplings since I am a die-hard fan of dumplings/dimsums/momos. Din Tai Fung is not like our Indo-Chinese/Chinjabi form of Chinese which we get back home. The restaurant has two seating areas: outdoor and indoor. We opted to sit out since the weather was very nice and the ambience outside gives you a feeling of sitting in China town. .
Din Tai Fung provides you with an experience be it their ambience, menu, way of serving of their dishes. Everything just adds to your food experience at this place. To describe you, they get their dishes in cloches to keep the dish warm, small soup bowls, small dipping sauce bowls, metal chopsticks, fresh ginger juliennes to go with dumplings. The most interesting thing about this restaurant is that you can make your own dipping sauce by mixing fresh ginger, soy sauce and vinegar its quite lethal in terms of the strong flavors of the all the three ingredients put together. On each table small plack-cards are kept with instructions as to how to have the dumplings which is really interesting and adds fun to the whole dining experience
To keep it simple, we ordered Chicken & Vegetable Dumplings and Vegetable & Mushroom Dumplings, these are classic dumplings with simple flavors of fresh ginger in both the dumplings. The outer layer was soft it should be with the right amount of filling inside, served hot in bamboo containers. The best way to have these dumplings is to make holes in them with the metal chopstick and pour the lethal mixture of vinegar, soy sauce and fresh ginger, I would suggest having the dumpling in one go as it will give a whole burst of flavors to your palette. Dumplings in general served here are bland so having their in house special chilli sauce for dipping is must to have a salivating experience. We also ordered Sauteed Spinach with Bean Curd sheet: lovely dish with fresh flavor of garlic, bean curd a very nice and clean dish goes well with over all food. Hot & Sour Soup is not like the usual soup which we get at our Indo-chinese restaurants, its very thick in consistency, lot of fried noodles, chicken and eggs are felt, overall soup was a bland side adding a dash of vinegar really lifted the flavor of soup. Veg and Chicken Chowmein: thick noodles, oily, bland, a drizzle of soy sauce really brought out the taste of the chowmein otherwise they are bland if had on their own. The dish after the dumplings I was most excited about was Crispy Chilli Chicken, while ordering I had an impression that it would be close to the chilli chicken I am used to having back home. Deep fried pieces of chicken tossed with fiery dried red chilli and peanuts and basil was quite different, can be had as a side dish but not as a main course. Now comes the weirdest dish I have ever tasted in my life, its Kidney Bean steamed Bao, it came as a fluffy and perfect round steamed bun with right amount of filling inside. It tasted like having sweetened mashed kidney bean paste inside a bao wherein one bite is enough for you to scrap the entire dish.
In and all my food experience at Din Tai Fung was good I would not call it great. Its slightly expensive and the portion size is relatively small as compared to other places in Dubai, but I would like to try this place one more time to try other dishes on the menu especially their steamed wontons and chilli noodles for which they are famous for. It’s a purely authentic Chinese restaurant and not the Chinese we get back home. I guess going with this mindset will make you enjoy the food!
Trippy Foodie 