Parking was hard to find in Times Square, since many Chinese like to go out to eat on the weekends. We arrived around 12:30 and only had to wait 10 minutes to be seated. The other patrons were all families who cared not for their appearances. The place was small and dingy, like the restaurants we used to frequent when the standard for cleanliness in Chinese restaurants was set lower. I was not impressed, but I knew that if the chef could pull off a really good steamed bun, I would be coming back. After all, who am I to judge the patrons and decor of a place that serves good, cheap food?

Service was fast and friendly. Unlike many dim sum locations where waitresses will ignore you for a good 20 minutes, this place was small and the servers kept an eye on everyone. The menu was long and varied, but we stuck to the dim sum selection. Prices were low, which was reasonable given the drab decor.

The first to arrive was a large bowl of fried tofu in fen si soup. The soup was filled with crisp and light fried tofu, clearly made in-house, but could have used more vermicelli.
Next came the tu dou si, potato strands in chili oil, which was lacking in salt and altogether undercooked (they felt wet somehow).

We ordered a rice cake stir-fry with xue cai², soybeans, and lean pork. Rice cakes can be stir-fried with many ingredients, but this is one of my favourite combinations. The rice cakes were surprisingly tender and well-formed, even they were probably made from frozen rice cakes. The pickled xue cai was clearly the store-bought canned kind, because they were far more salty than the rest of the ingredients.

Next to arrive were the steamed dumplings (jiao zi). The fillings were not very savoury and completely forgettable.

Similarly, the xiao long bao tasted like wontons instead of proper soup-filled dumplings. I think it was because the filling was made with too many scallions and even some sesame oil (completely inappropriate). Traditional xiao long bao have a savoury pork filling.

The only slightly redeeming dish was a plate of spring onion pancakes with sliced smoked pork and Hoi Sin sauce. The spring onion pancakes did not have enough green onions, although they were cooked to a perfect crisp. The sliced smoked pork was delightfully smokey and paired well with Hoi Sin sauce.

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.

Rating:

1. Actually, the term “dim sum” is strictly Cantonese. Translated into Mandarin, dian xin means dessert, not light dishes. There is no tradition of yum cha, which is what traditionally dim sum accompanies. If you follow the Wikipedia link, most of the typical dim sum items listed there belong in Cantonese cuisine. Although technically “northern-style dim sum” is an oxymoron, it is now widely accepted that a menu of small, steamed dishes can be called dim sum.
2. Pickled potherb mustard, doesn’t sound appetizing, but it is quite common in Asian cuisine and tastes great.

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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1. 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