dresese

Din Tai Fung

Every year, legendary Taiwanese dumpling masters Din Tai Fung come to the Flushing Sheraton for a week. They bring not only their prodigious skills, but also all of the raw ingredients from Taiwain!

I was fortunate enough to find out in advance when this would happen, and today a group of 9 of us went to gorge ourselves on the Din Tai Fung's legendary xiao long bao (soup dumplings) and other food. We not only got to eat this great food, but we saw the dumpling masters in action. I think they were somewhat surprised and amused that someone would be taking pictures of them.

It wasn't all dumplings. We started with a couple plates of "salty vegetable" which turned out to be some baby bok choi. It was perfect. Nicely salty, crunchy without tasting raw, and of course with bok choi's normal pleasant taste. This disappeared amazingly fast, especially for a vegetable dish!

We next ate some wonderful chicken soup. It was, as the waitress described it, "from real chicken, not frozen!" Taiwun Fun magazine describes it as "wild chicken". It had a perfectly clear broth, with a subtle, fresh flavor. The dark meat in the chicken was slippery and had a wonderful texture. One of the best chicken soups I've had.

Finally, the star of the show, the xiao long bao (or soup dumplings, as they are called here). We got two versions, one with just pork, and one with crab & pork. These were little miracles. They were small, perfectly sized, and had a dumpling skin that was both thin, strong, and tasty. The soup inside was much more elegant tasting than others I've had. The ones I've had in New York have had a sort of greasy, strong tasting broth, with the actual crab or pork somewhat of an afterthought. Not these. The broth accentuated the filling, and the filling was probably the most amazing thing about it. The crab & pork had such a nice, fresh, crab taste, with the texture of real crab. This was the only crab xiao long bao that actually tasted like crab. The pork xiao long bao also had a great filling, with an assertive taste, and a somewhat rough texture. For me, this was unusual, and a pleasant surprise.

We had many other dumplings, most of which I didn't get a picture of. They all were excellent. The strangest dumpling we had was a dumpling filled with sticky rice. This is a strange concept to me, and sort of reminded me of the pizzas you see in New York with ziti pasta on them. They were tasty, though, although they didn't blow me away.

All in all, I found the ingredients used to be top-quality fresh ingredients. The preparation was done extremely skillfully, and it all combined to form a wonderful and memorable meal. I don't know if I'll ever top these xiao long bao's, but I can only hope that I'll at least eat there again next year when Din Tai Fung comes around.