Din Tai Fung

Din Tai Fung

So the latest hot opening in Melbourne is Din Tai Fung, which has opened on Level 4 of Emporium. I’m sure we’re all aware of Din Tai Fung – the mega dumpling chain that started in Taiwan over 40 years ago and now has restaurants in 12 different countries. Sydney itself has 7 branches, and the Melbourne one opened only last month.


Alastair and I have been to one of the Sydney branches before, so I was interested to see how the Melbourne one stacked up. We made plans with friends for lunch, and since we knew there would be huge lines we decided to show up 10-15 minutes before opening time to be sure of a table. We arranged to meet on Sunday, and when the day came Alastair and I headed into the city early to have a coffee before lunch.

Somehow, despite being Sunday morning, Alastair and I were running ahead of schedule, and after our coffee we went straight to DTF – arriving just before 10.30am, 30 minutes before they opened for the day.

We were first in line. 🙂

DTF interior

As we waited, the line steadily grew, and by the time 11am rolled around the line had already snaked around the corner, doubled up, and reached the escalators.

The doors opened, and unfortunately our friends hadn’t arrived by that time, so Alastair and I got a table for two and had lunch by ourselves (we did ask if we could be seated while we waited, but were firmly but politely told no). While this branch in Melbourne is rather large, seating 235 people, I feel like there was close to that number waiting by opening time.

Drunken chicken

Alastair let me order – as always – and our first item was the Drunken chicken ($10.80). This chicken was served cold, and had a strongish aroma from its Chinese rice wine marinade. It was very good, the meat was tender and flavoursome, though people who don’t like the rice wine flavour probably won’t like this.

XLB

Of course we had to order pork xiao long bao (6 pieces for $10.80). As expected from Din Tai Fung, the XLB were excellent. Even after being cooked, you can see how beautifully constructed they were with their perfect pleats.

XLB skin

The skin was thin and elastic, with a good amount of soup inside, and a juicy filling.

Wontons

We also had some spicy prawn pork dumpling wantan ($10.80), which possibly just squeezed out the XLB to be my favourite item of the meal. Unfortunately the waitress gave the dish a stir when she placed it down – not so good for photos – but I suppose that was helpful of her?! The sauce that covered the wontons was delicious, not very spicy but really tasty, and the dumpling skins themselves were great.

Truffle XLB

We splashed out and ordered two of the truffle dumplings ($4.40 each). It was recommended that these be eaten without vinegar and ginger, so you can fully appreciate the truffle. There was definitely recognisable bits of real truffle in with the filling, and they were quite nice, but for me they were one of those “try once” things.

Crab XLB

These were crab & pork XLB (6 pieces for $17.80), which were good but for the price I definitely preferred the plain pork ones. (Interestingly, going back and reading my Sydney post, I realise that I said the exact same thing 4 years ago. It’s nice that I’m consistent.)

Chiang noodles

We also had an order of the Cha Jiang noodle ($13.80).

Chiang noodles

These noodles have a topping made of minced pork, soy bean and tofu. The topping by itself was on the salty side, but perfect when eaten with the noodles.

Taro bread

And finally, for dessert we had golden taro bread and taro ice cream ($7.80).

This is not something that I would normally order, but Thanh highly recommended it. And wow he was right in his praises – it was so so good.

The taro bread was basically deep fried white bread with a taro filling. It doesn’t sound that great but they’d managed to fry the bread so it was thin and really crispy.

Even Alastair, who doesn’t like taro, tried some and loved it.

Taro ice cream

I wouldn’t bother with the ice cream again though – it was way too sweet for me. (The bread can be ordered without it.)

Din Tai Fung kitchen

So the verdict – I have to say, the food at the Melbourne DTF is very good. I had to wait in line and I still think it was worth it. I would line up again too – and I don’t say that about many places.

Note that they close in between lunch and dinner, so if you do want to go for lunch I suggest trying to get there early or you run the risk of not being able to get a table. If you’re keen to get in the first round, I’d recommend trying to arrive 10-15 minutes before opening.

DTF interior

Din Tai Fung
Level 4 (via the escalator next to Jimmy Grants in the food court on Level 3 – or there are external lifts from the corner of Caledonian Lane and Little Bourke Street)
Emporium Melbourne
287 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Telephone: 03 9654 1876
Website: dintaifung.com.au

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