In that case, you’d slurp the dumplings, make a crisp, delicious golden prawn pancake disappear and perhaps a bowl of wobbly wontons in chilli oil, maybe even some bland, white noodles in a puddle of spicy sauce, and leave feeling pleasantly sated. Here is the rub about hype: there would be nothing at all wrong with Din Tai Fung if you popped in one day, unbesmirched by pre-bluster and expecting nothing. This, I mused, might be a handy thing for one of the managers, of which there are about 17, to go and tell the people queueing for five hours outside.ĭin Tai Fung, London WC2: ‘Dumpling technicians in surgical masks and white lab coats.’ Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Guardian Almost everything fried on the menu was unavailable, as were all the desserts – the sweet steamed buns filled with red taro or chocolate lava, or any of the jellies, rice or mango puddings. We wanted crispy wonton, but there was none of that, either. We wanted the prawn and angled gourd, but there was none. A side of black, waxy, soy-drenched wood-ear mushrooms with ginger in vinegar were peculiar yet compelling. We took the pale green, vegetarian jiaozi, which are pretty to look at and filled with brown, umami-flavoured mulch. To taste, they’re pleasantly inoffensive, neither obscenely soupy nor intensely flavoured. We ordered the classic pork bao, in delicate, accomplished, neatly pinched dough with 18 tiny puckers. This is either charming, or a bit like feeding time at a medical trials centre you signed up for to settle your gambling debts. Sporadically, one of these white-coated, faceless and almost inaudible workers will totter, Pingu-style, to your table laden with a stack of baskets. The path to your table takes you past a glass-fronted workspace filled with dumpling technicians, all wearing surgical masks and white laboratory coats, standing in groups of five, and filling, weighing and primping xiao long bao, shumai, jiaozi and so on. Or you may feel as if you’re in the dining room of a last-minute two-star Costa Brava hotel that you booked half-board but by day three are loth to eat in. You will either revel in its sparse, non-luxurious simplicity, the cheap tables, the Ikea glasses and the hollow acoustics. What’s less easy to decipher is why Din Tai Fung is “cool right now”, which would require a spider-chart with quantitative variables on youth trends, shifting demographics, plus some lemming-attracting pixie dust.ĭin Tai Fung’s pork xiao long bao: ‘Pleasantly inoffensive.’ Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Guardianĭin Tai Fung’s decor will divide diners. The company has made moves on London in a swaggering – albeit politely swaggering – manner by commandeering two enormo-restaurants in the eye-wateringly expensive real-estate zones of Henrietta Street and, soon, Oxford Street’s Centre Point. Din Tai Fung is a global chain that specialises in Taiwanese dumplings and Huaiyang cuisine. Clearly they help, but real, giddy hype will always be something of a perfect storm. Hype of the level surrounding Din Tai Fung, I must stress, is not created simply by paid public relations teams. In December, on a busy, pre-Christmas tourist thoroughfare, bring a cagoule and stay hydrated, because the queue for its xiao long bao and salted egg custard lava buns will feel like the sort of war of attrition from which Stephen King could milk 500 pages. At the all-new, 250-seater Din Tai Fung in London’s Covent Garden, those shadowy voices of hype said we should expect an opening-week queue of five hours. I wish I could reveal something more wholesome, but hype will put more bums on seats and napkins in laps than a new opening’s deft seasoning or fancy produce suppliers. Kneading the dough, rolling it into cylinders, filling, folding and plucking – each step in the dumpling-chain is an individual branch of knowledge, and the chain's top brass knows everyone's hands are different.Hype is a vital pivot of the restaurant scene. The cooks who make DTF’s hallowed, soup-filled xiaolongbao train for three months at just one aspect of the dumpling-making process. Diners in the main space look out over Little Bourke, while others watch the exacting dumpling masters at work. Emporium (2015) is Melbourne's first DTF and occupies an entire upper floor – 235 seats with private dining rooms and a dedicated waiting area. Welcome to Din Tai Fung – the Taiwanese dumpling chain that became world-famous when, in 2009, one of its outlets earned a coveted Michelin star.ĭin Tai Fung first arrived in Australia in 2008 and now runs restaurants all across Sydney. JT is on the speakers and Take That’s ready to go. Waiters are dressed in crisp black and white, their audio earpieces firmly in-ear. Towers made from bamboo baskets teeter over steamers.
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