World Famous Dumplings

Or at least that's what people say regarding Din Tai Fung Dumpling House, with the only North American location (or, the only non-Asia location) located in Arcadia. We headed out there, which we found was only about 5 minutes from my sister's house, in part of a birthday celebration for a friend.

There are actually two locations back-to-back: one is the older, smaller original restaurant, and the second is a newer and larger addition. We went to the original one, and would have gotten seated pretty quickly since we were pretty early, but with 1 member of our 5-person party missing, they wouldn't seat us. Really!

Preparing the dumplings...

So when we finally got seated, it was kind of cramped, but it was okay. And one of their dishes was already out (as in, no more)... so we ended up getting... 6 orders of the pork dumplings, 1 order of the fish dumplings, 1 order of the pork and crab dumplings, 1 order of sauteed spinach, 1 order of sauteed baby bok choy, 1 order of spicy beef noodle soup, 1 order of chicken noodle soup (rice noodle), 1 order of fried pork chop... is there anything else I'm forgetting?

Anyway, the big deal about their dumplings is that within the steamed little pouches sits a pork (or whichever meat you chose) meatball swimming in a pool of soup broth. Yes, soup broth. So if you're not careful, the juices could be flying everywhere! In fact, on the back of their chopstick wrapper are directions of how to properly eat their famous dumplings!

In case it's illegible, the directions say: 1) Pour vinegar into the small saucer with the ginger; 2) Gently lift one dumpling and dip it into the ginger vinegar; 3) Place it on your spoon; 4) Take a nibble on the dumpling skin and sip the juice; 5) Drizzle some vinegar and ginger slices on top of the dumpling; 6) Now Enjoy!

Verdict: it was a good meal alright! I know I'm Asian and I'm supposed to like dumplings and stuff... but seriously, those little suckers were addicting! Would we recommend this place? Yes. Would we come back? Yes! Except next time, we'll go to the newer location.