I had lunch at the Din Tai Fung restaurant in Sydney, located at shop 11.04 in the World Square Building yesterday between the exhibition and the airport for the first time to see what all the "fuss" is about.
Din Tai Fung has a reputation for making some of the worlds best dumplings, especially the Xiaolongbao. It started off in Taiwan and now has expanded all over the world with the one in Sydney only opening last year in 2008. I was warned about the price tag before I went already so I knew it would come at a cost indeed. I guess for a once off experience to start with (since I didn't know if I would go back again) I was prepared to spend a little for something like this. I had company anyway so the costs could be split.
The line was quite long and when we got a waiting number we were also asked if we would mind sharing a table, which we didn't. We selected a few dishes and waited to be called in as a table of eight. We got seated at table 88 with the position of .2 on the tag and our server was a person called Oily. We didn't have to wait long for the first dish to come which was the xiaolongbao. They were delicately made and you could see the soup inside. They were hot, and the dumplings were soft and pliable but tough enough not to rip as you peeled them off the cloth inside the steamer basket. They were very good, very nice, very flavourful. Even once they had cooled a bit and were still warm, they were very delicious. The price was a little steep at $10.80 for a basket of eight, but I guess the skill and quality of ingredients going into it supposedly of very high quality.
We also had some fried rice, another dumpling (spinach and pork), the drunken chicken, a taro bread roll and taro dumplings to finish. I believe that how well a place does fried rice can be an indicator of their overall cooking approach. Every chinese restaurant will do a fried rice, but how well they do it separates them because it is such a 'standard' dish that good places should be able to make them great. Din Tai Fung's standard fried rice with prawns was ordinary. It wasn't particularly flavoursome, thankfully not oily at least. It was... quite bland actually and certainly not worth the price tag to match either. That was a little disappointing since I have had better fried rice from the joints in Newtown and had hoped that they could do something with it. In their defence though, their reputation is in dumplings so they could be forgiven in putting less effort into their non-dumpling dishes.
The other dumplings were nice, I had never had spinach and pork before, so it was a little stringy but soft and easily chewed. Quite nice. The drunken chicken was a cold entree and it was a boneless bit of sliced chicken that had been boiled in salt water and then immersed in rice wine. It was a very delicate dish, and subtle with the rice wine flavour just hinting itself fore and after the eating. The salt boiled chicken was also done well so that it wasn't too salty but allowed the chicken to have some flavour of sorts. I quite liked it and while it too was a little pricey, at least it did have some justification for it.
The Taro Golden Bread Roll was interesting. It was taro paste (sweetened), that looked like it had been wrapped in compressed white bread (no crusts) and then pinned and deep-fried. It was wonderfully fragrant to some point except you could tell that it had been fried using "old" oil (i.e. it had been used a lot already). The texture was crispy outside with the soft sweet hot taro filling and it had sesame on the ends. The taro dumplings that we finished off on were slightly thicker skinned dumpling skin with taro wrapped inside it. It was hot also and squishy but the thicker skin made the texture of the taro inside somehow feel very smooth and silky.
The bill for two came to $53 for lunch. So practically $27 a person for half of six dishes. While it is a little on the high side, it was about expected because I had been told that it would cost about $30-40 to have a meal. It wasn't filling but it was enough to sate a hunger at least and a culinary experience.
As a conclusion, I think the price is reasonable. The skill in making some of the dishes is noticable, and the timing is very fast. As an asian restaurant with the need to move customers in and out quickly, I think they are quite efficient and good at it. I would say that for special occasions or random acts of splurging I would be happy to go there again to taste some of their dishes, but probably not too frequently.
If you haven't been and you are curious, give it a try, if not just for the Xiaolongbao and nothing else since that is what they are known for.
Din Tai Fung has a reputation for making some of the worlds best dumplings, especially the Xiaolongbao. It started off in Taiwan and now has expanded all over the world with the one in Sydney only opening last year in 2008. I was warned about the price tag before I went already so I knew it would come at a cost indeed. I guess for a once off experience to start with (since I didn't know if I would go back again) I was prepared to spend a little for something like this. I had company anyway so the costs could be split.
The line was quite long and when we got a waiting number we were also asked if we would mind sharing a table, which we didn't. We selected a few dishes and waited to be called in as a table of eight. We got seated at table 88 with the position of .2 on the tag and our server was a person called Oily. We didn't have to wait long for the first dish to come which was the xiaolongbao. They were delicately made and you could see the soup inside. They were hot, and the dumplings were soft and pliable but tough enough not to rip as you peeled them off the cloth inside the steamer basket. They were very good, very nice, very flavourful. Even once they had cooled a bit and were still warm, they were very delicious. The price was a little steep at $10.80 for a basket of eight, but I guess the skill and quality of ingredients going into it supposedly of very high quality.
We also had some fried rice, another dumpling (spinach and pork), the drunken chicken, a taro bread roll and taro dumplings to finish. I believe that how well a place does fried rice can be an indicator of their overall cooking approach. Every chinese restaurant will do a fried rice, but how well they do it separates them because it is such a 'standard' dish that good places should be able to make them great. Din Tai Fung's standard fried rice with prawns was ordinary. It wasn't particularly flavoursome, thankfully not oily at least. It was... quite bland actually and certainly not worth the price tag to match either. That was a little disappointing since I have had better fried rice from the joints in Newtown and had hoped that they could do something with it. In their defence though, their reputation is in dumplings so they could be forgiven in putting less effort into their non-dumpling dishes.
The other dumplings were nice, I had never had spinach and pork before, so it was a little stringy but soft and easily chewed. Quite nice. The drunken chicken was a cold entree and it was a boneless bit of sliced chicken that had been boiled in salt water and then immersed in rice wine. It was a very delicate dish, and subtle with the rice wine flavour just hinting itself fore and after the eating. The salt boiled chicken was also done well so that it wasn't too salty but allowed the chicken to have some flavour of sorts. I quite liked it and while it too was a little pricey, at least it did have some justification for it.
The Taro Golden Bread Roll was interesting. It was taro paste (sweetened), that looked like it had been wrapped in compressed white bread (no crusts) and then pinned and deep-fried. It was wonderfully fragrant to some point except you could tell that it had been fried using "old" oil (i.e. it had been used a lot already). The texture was crispy outside with the soft sweet hot taro filling and it had sesame on the ends. The taro dumplings that we finished off on were slightly thicker skinned dumpling skin with taro wrapped inside it. It was hot also and squishy but the thicker skin made the texture of the taro inside somehow feel very smooth and silky.
The bill for two came to $53 for lunch. So practically $27 a person for half of six dishes. While it is a little on the high side, it was about expected because I had been told that it would cost about $30-40 to have a meal. It wasn't filling but it was enough to sate a hunger at least and a culinary experience.
As a conclusion, I think the price is reasonable. The skill in making some of the dishes is noticable, and the timing is very fast. As an asian restaurant with the need to move customers in and out quickly, I think they are quite efficient and good at it. I would say that for special occasions or random acts of splurging I would be happy to go there again to taste some of their dishes, but probably not too frequently.
If you haven't been and you are curious, give it a try, if not just for the Xiaolongbao and nothing else since that is what they are known for.
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