Beansprout's Cafe: Din Tai Fung Restaurant

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Din Tai Fung Restaurant

After read my favourite blog, Lorraine E, I decided to go to Din Tai Fung, the world famous Taiwanese Dumpling chain and specialises in Xiao long bao. The craze has spread throughout China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, The USA and has finally hit Sydney !

We went there a bit early .. about 6.00 pm on Monday ..so the restaurant was not so full crowded like last time i went to observe :P

The decor in the restaurant was nice, the light enhances the popular feel/warmth of the place. Decorations are obviously with the multiplication of various cooking and eating utensils. On the main display are the steamers for dumplings and buns, and below are are arranged with soup spoons, bowls, and chopsticks.

At that time, there were still little people.

The seasoning are chinese oil chilli, chinese vinegar, soy sauce and pepper.

We ordered Chinese hot tea $2.00 per person

The service here is very friendly...The waitress are some Chineses, Koreans and Thais..good for a Chinese restaurant. The first one who taked care of our table was Chinese (I guess ^ ^) ..We asked her to recommend the dishes...

The food came out from the kitchen really fast...

Din Tai Fung Vegetarian Delight...The Chinese waitress told us this one is quite popular...It is the tofu, sea weed and some pickle seasoned with sesame oil..the veggies were crunchy and have a hint of sesame oil ...

The shredded ginger in the saucer is part of the standard table setting..I was filled with vinegar and a bit of soy sauce, which is the common seasoning for the dumplings.

The next dish was Cha Jiang Noodle..(Noodles mixed in broad-bean sauce)...I think it was like Spaghetti bolognese not only the look but also the taste ^^''...However the noodle was perfect cooking...we mixed it with sauce, plus beef, tofu and beans...

The hi light one came...Xiao Long Bao (Steamed pork dumplings)... We were very carefully handle the dumplings because past experience had taught us the fragile of the xiao long skin...so easily broken...Especially when you pick them up with chopsticks, many rupture, spilling the precious soup within...But not in this case...I have no idea how they can make this nicely....the skin was acceptably thin (translucent), elastic but not chewy...Even Um dropped her dumpling from the spoon onto the plate...still not broken...2 thumbs up !!

Soup and pork filling inside was tasty but not much strong ginger flavour for my liking...hot but not burn your tongue (which i like..lol)

Another dumpling we had, Shrimp and pork shao - mai ..But this one the skin was a bit too thick... (It came not so nice...like sleepy shao-mai ..haha)

Looks beautiful, doesn't it?

Then another noodle came...Noodles mixed in Sesame and Peanut sauce...The waitress recommended using a bit of chilli sauce to give it some kick, but i forgot -_-'' Anyway, it was soooo yummy...I really like the sauce...(i am the sesame and nuts person..*laught*) Again, the noodles were of the ideal texture, tension and smoothness. It’s very pleasant to bite into.

Um with a bit dark face cuz the light ...

Seok and me....(In this time, the china girl asked us that wheather we are a couple. She said i am beautiful and Seok is handsome... lol...funny girl)

When we almost finished our dinner, another korean girl came..she is Seok's friend who studying Basic Cuisine in LCB also...so cute ^ ^