San Diego: Din Tai Fung

Love this xiaolongbao guy who greets everyone at the door!

The only place I booked ahead of arriving in San Diego to make sure we got a table was at Din Tai Fung! There are none of these Taiwanese dumpling chain restaurants in Canada and the last time I ate at Din Tai Fung was in Hong Kong almost a year ago.

Xiaolongbao with kurobuta pork

We drove about 25 minutes south to a shopping mall called Westfield UTC on La Jolla Drive. It's a huge mall complex with Nordstrom's and Macy's, and I later heard in the last few years the mall has blinged its way up the luxury brand ladder with boutiques like Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Michael Kors alongside H&M, Zara and Apple.

The mall is an outdoor shopping format, taking advantage of the weather and giving people lots of space to walk around and grab bites to eat in kiosks and restaurants scattered all over the shopping space.

Din Tai Fung has its format well established, from greeting customers outside the restaurant -- all members of the party must be present before they can be seated -- and watching the kitchen staff making dumplings right by the window. Some don't want to be photographed or videoed (despite wearing masks and head coverings) that they turn their backs slightly to the window.

Vegan dumplings with so many foldes

Over 10 years ago I visited the branch in Arcadia in Los Angeles and was impressed by the Mexicans deftly making xiaolongbao, but here the wait staff were both Asian and non-Asian which threw me off a bit. Almost all of them wore black masks along with their black uniforms, women had their hair in simple buns.

The interior is very contemporary and hardly Asian -- there are elongated booth seatings for up to four that slightly curves in on each side -- another two people can sit on the outside.

The menu is not like Hong Kong's -- was surprised to find there was no kaofu or braised wheat gluten with mushrooms and edamame, but mostly spicy dishes were there like cucumbers in chilli sauce. We ordered the seaweed and beancurd in vinegar dressing and wood ear mushrooms with vinegar dressing.

Sauteed string beans with garlic

These arrived very swiftly, followed by a slew of dumplings. The signature xiaolongbao with kurobuta pork had the memorably thin wrapper, but the filling was too pureed for my taste; it did not have a meaty, firm texture.

A new one for me was chicken dumplings with so many folds, but seemed thin with the filling and also quite pureed. The vegan dumplings were not quite what I remembered. Biting into it you couldn't quite identify everything in there by sight, though the description said there were glass noodles, bok choy, dried bean curd and shiitake mushrooms and spinach juice to dye the wrapper green.

We also had a portion of wontons in soup, sauteed broccoli with garlic and sauteed string beans with garlic, potstickers, as well as the fried rice with chicken which was very good. The vegetables were parboiled before being stir-fried to stay so crispy and fresh looking.

Fried rice with large pieces of chicken

The staff were very friendly and knew answers to all our questions. One person traveling with us has an allergy to sesame seed oil and the waitress immediately pulled out her copy of the menu with items highlighted in pink that had sesame seed oil. Impressive.

We thought we didn't have room for dessert, but we couldn't pass up the taro xiaolongbao; we could also rest our stomachs for around 10 minutes waiting for them.

They definitely hit the spot, 10 pieces and here the filling was rightly pureed, smooth and creamy, but no dairy, encased in a thin wrapper. Glorious.

Afterwards we rolled out of there, and there were many more people waiting outside for their turn to fill their stomachs with dumplings...

Taro xiaolongbao for dessert

Din Tai Fung

4301 La Jolla Village Drive

San Diego, CA

92122

(858) 375 5988