As with all famous things though, there are its fans and there are its critics. I've always loved going to New York's Shanghai restaurants, and I haven't had a xiaolongbao in months. So I took advantage of my visit and decided to go to the original Din Tai Fung on Xinyi Road (there are four branches in Taipei city).
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| Conveniently located right off the Dong Men stop! |
At 10:30 in the morning, there were already about a dozen groups waiting for tables. The wait was short though (about 10 minutes), and I got a menu to look at to contemplate my order. There was a large number of staff to handle all the customers, and they all seemed to be multi-lingual! They quickly switched to English with me, while addressing others in Japanese. Indeed, there seemed to be a large ratio of Japanese tourists there (we're ALL on Obon holiday, after all!).
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| Perusing menu as I wait. |
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| The menu was quite large, but the stars are these five types of soup dumplings. Look at the last one: $15 USD for pork and truffle dumplings! $3 a dumpling! |
While the xiaolongbao usually came in orders of 10, there was luckily an option for a half order. I waffled between getting the classic pork, or the pork with crab roe. What the heck; I decided to splurge on the crab roe... although over $1 a bao, it didn't come cheap! For a refreshing textural change, I also got an order of the spicy pickled cucumbers.
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| Crisp and lightly pickled cucumbers. |
Amusingly, the waitress handed each guest instructions on how to eat soup dumplings. The how-to featured instructions written in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, English, and French! Ha... what happened to Spanish?
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| The back had the same information, but in its Japanese and French translations. |
The soup dumplings came out quickly. A cute little crab cutout indicated what type of dumpling was in the basket. I peeked over at my neighbors' basket (I was sharing a table with two other Japanese couples), and they had an adorable little chick in theirs! Time to eat!
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| The cloth lining ensured that every dumpling can be picked up without sticking to the bamboo basket. |
I do have to give my compliments on the wrapper. It seemed impossibly thin, yet retained a toothsome chewiness. The pork was sweet and fresh, obviously of high quality. There was a good quantity of crab roe, infusing the dumpling with a rich flavor.
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| Inside shot of juicy goodness |
Was it tasty? Absolutely. Was it the best soup dumpling I've ever had? Hm. Probably not. For one, there was less 'soup' than I expected. Secondly, temperature has a huge effect on soup dumplings, and my preference is that they should be served scorchingly hot. Biting a small hole in the wrapper of a xialongbao to cool down the insides juuust enough to slurp it down is one of the small joys in life. These dumplings were hot, yet cool enough that I could just pop an entire one in my mouth if I had wanted.
Of course, these reasons are quite subjective. I still enjoyed the dumplings greatly, and managed to walk out for under $10 USD. As a fun experiment, I think I'm going to get soup dumplings again tomorrow morning... from the street vendor across the street from where I'm staying. Let's see and compare!
After my early lunch, I walked around Yong Kang Street (永康街) and browsed its cute little shops. I passed by this giant of a place:
While tempted, I suffered sticker shock at its prices (one of the mango ices was $6 USD!). Also, I wasn't particularly looking to have the snowy style shaved ice again. Luckily, I found a little hole-in-the-wall place serving the classic thing (after walking around for like an hour!), and got myself a dessert!
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| If I could, I would eat one EVERY DAY. |
I don't know why I've been craving the red beans lately more than the fruity versions. This ice was huge, seriously about the size of my entire head. Yes, I ate it all. And at 70 NTD ($2.33 USD), a very reasonable price!
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