Delicious Dumpling Dinner

Actually, it was lunch....but calling it dinner had that certain alliteration quality. Welcome to Din Tai Fung, this restaurant is actually world famous....it isn't just called a famous restaurant. (In Taiwan, everthing is "famous"). See the number four on the first picture by the sign? That is the waiting line...now look at the pink order slip on the right...I don't know if you can make it out, but written at the top is a number 30 that is circled....that is our number in line. We actually got there when the numbers were still on 95 or so, they cycle through at 100. The restaurant is really popular...and we found out why.

In this picture you can see the army of chefs prepping and steaming huge stacks of dumplings. There were articles on the window from the New York Times about the chef who owns and operates and oversees this restaurant. It was cool to watch them making the dumplings while we waited....almost as cool as watching Krispy Kremes go through the doughnut machines........mmmmmm......Krispy Kreme..........what were we talking about?



Okay, here is the first batch of the dumplings that we ordered. They were sooooooooo good! We almost died when we ate the pork soup dumplings. We have got to figure out how to make these things. They were great. I'm not kidding, I would put this meal on the top three of good places I have eaten at. And it was a pretty funny little restaurant. Everything in Taiwan is tall and skinny because it is so crowded. When the waitress went to seat us we had to walk through this tiny hallway that was actually the ground floor of the restaurant (which actually had five or six tables crammed into it) and up two flights of stair (through the kitchen) to get to our seats. There are about five floors of seating there...but the wait can be up to two or three hours...and people are willing to wait, because it is so worth it. It was also a pretty good deal for what it was...it cost us about 700 NT...and considering that we would have gone to TGIFridays and spent about 1000NT for much lower quality food, it really worked out for us.


This picture on the right is of the sauce for dipping your dumplings in....it is fresh shredded ginger that you dump either soy sauce or vinegar over. Mmmmmmm.........