Visiting the legendary Din Tai Fung is a given for anyone living in or visiting SoCal. Consistently ranked as one of the top Chinese restaurants, this place is famous for its Shanghai-style steamed pork dumplings (xiaolongbao) – the round kinds cooked in bamboo baskets and filled with greasy soup in each bite.
A few years back, I didn’t really understand the hype surrounding Din Tai Fung. I was born and raised in the SGV/Hacienda Heights area, where Chinese restaurants (and Shanghai steamed pork dumplings) are found on seemingly every block. But now that I’ve gone to DTF three times, I can safely say these dumplings are not just great, but consistently great. Whereas other places are hit-or-miss, depending on the day, who prepped/cooked the dumplings, etc., I’ve yet to have a bad experience with the food here.
Plus, there’s a good variety of other flavorful dishes, including an almost endless assortment of dumplings and traditional Shanghainese eats. The place is nice, the service fast, and the waiters/waitresses friendly, quite a rarity for similar restaurants. Although the wait’s almost always long, they’re even nice enough to text you when your table is ready, leaving you time to explore other parts of Arcadia and SoCal.
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