Ding Tai Fung has become surprisingly famous considering its unassuming location at First Markham Place, and for good reason. The dim sum here is the most authentic I’ve ever had, and lucky for me, it is Shanghai-style as opposed to Cantonese-style. That means, no carts rolling around and plenty of xiao long bao for all!
Pai gu may have been my favourite dish at home as a child, but xiao long bao were hands down my favourite thing to order when we were eating out. I grew up in Nanjing, which is not far from Shanghai and certainly influenced by Shanghai cuisine. We always went out to eat steamed buns (filled and unfilled) and steamed dumplings because they were cheap and extremely time-consuming to make at home (there were no such things as frozen buns and dumplings in those days so we’d have to make it from scratch). Not to mention, I spent a summer in Shanghai with my grandparents and I made sure to eat enough xiao long bao to last me until the next time I returned to China.
There is an art to eating xiao long bao, one that I don’t care to exercise unless I’m in China. What is this art and why don’t I exercise it? The proper way to eat xiao long bao is to gently lift it out of the long zi (bamboo basket), dip it in vinegar (optional – but if you are a native of the JiangSu province, you will not skip the vinegar), and eat it in one bite so that no soup leaks out. The xiao long bao wrapper is very thin and delicate, and it sticks to surfaces, so it’s easy to break if you set it down. And letting the soup leak out is a blasphemy for all Chinese, so be sure the xiao long bao goes straight from the basket to your mouth if you are eating with “real Chinese.”
The reason I tend not to follow this technique when I eat is because the soup is so hot that I’ll often burn my mouth if I eat the xiao long bao in one bite. However, I am not going to let the soup leak out either, so I’ll put the xiao long bao down in a small bowl or on a soup soon, and then I bite a small hole in the wrapper and suck out the soup before I eat the xiao long bao. Still tastes delicious!
But I digress. My friend and I arrived at 11pm and Ding Tai Fung was already quite busy. When we were seated, we realized with horror that the entire menu was Chinese. My friend could not read any Chinese, and I can only read some. Luckily, my knowledge of Chinese was enough for us to navigate through most of the dim sum items.
Either we were lucky or everything at Ding Tai Fung tastes delicious because everything that came to our table tasted amazing. I’ve never tasted such simple yet perfect Chinese dim sum before, especially because many Chinese restaurants don’t think dim sum is important1. It’s like how lunch entrees are often not as good as dinner entrees except that dim sum is a completely different menu (and world) of its own.
Ding Tai Fung obviously did not subscribe to this philosophy, and quite rightly, its dim sum is what made it famous.
The first item was a leng cai (literally, cold dish, i.e. appetizer) of spicy beef tripe. It was cold and spicy and a little bit sweet – simply delicious.
The second item was the basket of xiao long bao. The authenticity of xiao long bao is easily determinable. If the wrapper is thick, it is not authentic. If there is no soup or very little soup, it is not authentic. Shanghai xiao long bao is also always a pork filling with pork soup, so any other ingredients in the filling would make it not authentic. This was authentic in every way. As I bit into the thin wrap, hot, savoury soup spilled out and burned my tongue, but I ate it all in one bite. My mouth came alive with the sensation of rich pork juices, and my mind sent me back to my summer in Shanghai, where I spent many hot afternoons on the air-conditioned second floor of a tea house, eating basket after basket of xiao long bao.
The third item to arrive was the vegetable spring rolls. They were crisp and golden, and quite perfect. I’ve never had spring rolls in a restaurant before in China, so I don’t know if these were authentic, but they tasted pretty good. The filling was vegetarian, I think bok choy or Chinese cabbage.
The fourth item was by far the most delicious. It was a beef roll wrapped in aluminum foil that I’ve seen other people order many times, but I’ve never seen it in China or had it myself. It may be a Cantonese dim sum item. Either way, it was delicious. It was a pan-fried crispy roll, with sliced beef and scallions wrapped inside with Hoi Sin sauce.
On subsequent trips to Ding Tai Fung, I have tried their vegetable jiao zi, which are filled with Chinese greens and shredded Chinese vermicelli and steamed in a paper-thin translucent dumpling wrap. Dan dan noodles are not their forte, nor are luo bo si su bing (pan-fried shredded turnip pancake), although it is slightly less soggy than what I’ve had at other places. Mini (bite-size) xiao long bao are not nearly as good as the standard xiao long bao, and pork and glutinous rice shao mai leave something to be desired. Crispy spring onion pancakes are a good standby, as are stir-fried rice cakes (Shanghai nian gao).
For dessert, their sugar egg puff tastes like nothing with confectioner’s sugar sprinkled on top. I don’t have a picture, but here is what a sugar egg puff looks like. The most interesting dessert they offer is the steamed red bean rice cake. It is not too sweet or decadent, but fragrant and beautiful.
The servers speak Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, and the food arrives quite quickly considering everything is made fresh. Service can be slower on weekends, but while you wait, you can watch the cute dumpling makers behind the glass pleat dumplings with practiced confidence. The washrooms are a little cramped but fairly clean. Prices were standard for dim sum, between $5 to $9 dollars a dish.
Rating: 
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- They won’t have the head chef prepare those items, and some places will even buy pre-made or frozen dim sum and just heat it up [↩]
Need to try Ding Tai Fung soon, somewhere…somehow.
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Wow, this Din Tai Fung is sure successful with so many outlets around the world. We have this in Singapore too. The only dishes I like from them (so far) are the xiao long bao and their egg fried rice
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[...] While Northern Dumpling Kitchen seems to have gotten the right idea with its no frills service and northern-style menu, the chefs need to stop cutting corners and put more effort into the dishes. Xiao long bao that comes out tasting like wontons, stir fried rice cake with store-bought canned xue cai, and undercooked tu dou si is simply not acceptable to serve to a Chinese clientele. Perhaps some customers can overlook the laziness of the chefs at these prices, but I would rather drive another 20 minutes and pay the extra $5 per person at Ding Tai Fung. [...]