Din Tai Fung

Despite having grown up in Los Angeles, I'd only been to Din Tai Fung once in my life, and that was long before I became one of the pickiest eaters I know.


I wasn't impressed then, and I'm still not impressed now. The Shanghai soup dumplings are moist, the skins are thin, and there's plenty of juice. However, there's something lackluster about the skins. They're slack, they don't have enough gluten in them, and they have no flavor. There's just no life to them.

The glutinous rice siu mai were even worse. Thick, gummy skin wrapped around overcooked, dry, unseasoned rice. I had to douse mine in soy sauce, and I typically eschew soy sauce on anything that's supposed to already have soy sauce in it.

Din Tai Fung gets a few points for offering some of the cheapest soup dumplings around, but I won't be returning.