Din Tai Fung - Arcadia

I think everyone that lives in Los Angeles knows of a dumpling house called Din Tai Fung. Basically the story was that there was a man who was born in Shanxi, China and he moved to Taiwan due to the Chinese Civil War. At first when he opened Din Tai Fung, it was a cooking oil retailer but business was bad so he and his wife ended up selling Xiaolongbao. His Xialongbaos took off and he then stopped selling oil and look at what an empire they built.

The question for me.. is it as good as the hype?

Yes, it's all over hyped, over rated..at least it is in Los Angeles.

I've been here many times because J likes it very much.

J's fav. vegetables - baby bok choy.
This was pretty bad when we went that day. The vegetables were bitter and drenched in oil, but on all other days it's really good and lite.

dan dan noodles - This is basically dried noodles in a spicy sesame sauce. It's on of my favorite noodles and I thought they did it really well. Portion wise was pretty small but I was surprised J actually liked it.

Meat bun - Obviously these can NEVER beat the ones I've had in Lugang in Taiwan where when you open the bun juices splurt out. I always get these because I love dipping it in the viniger and hot sauce. :)

Here's their famous Xiaolongbao. I read somewhere that DinTaifung actually has this thing about the folds in their xlb. I think it's suppose to have 15-18 folds. I have to go back and re-read the article.

So when you bite into it, juices come out.

Heebeejeebies, you see how much soup is in one dumpling. This is where I think DTF is really crazy.. I've never had xlb with this much soup in it.




Is this place that great? It depends on what you like but I've noticed many many people that come here aren't Chinese/Taiwanese. Many are korean!! Isn't that cool? I happen to always sit next to Koreans. That's not the point, the point I'm trying to make is that DTF is really universal. I'm sure everyone who hasn't had xlb will like it. It's clean, it's simple, it's easy to eat.




Din Tai Fung

1088 S Baldwin Ave
Arcadia, CA 91007

(626) 446-8588