Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐 — Restaurant in Vancouver

A Taiwanese restaurant right on Alberni, how neat is that. And a restaurant that specializes in Baos and dumplings too. Perfect. We don't drive down to Richmond, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover this while crawling Google Maps looking for vegan places to eat. And yes, they have quite a lot of vegan items, and garlic is optional for some. Check! We were not prepared for the actual experience though. From Alberni Street, the restaurant is upstairs and the number of second story windows indicates that it may not be very large. It turns out they have 380 seats! And busy! We visited four times within six weeks. This is such a change from most of the Chinese restaurants in Vancouver. I usually have trouble communicating with or understanding the servers in Chinese restaurants. Not at Din Tai Fung though. The service was mostly outstanding. So far, the servers we have encountered are Asians that spoke perfect English and they all seem to have taken a couple of months of finishing course. Extremely polite. Even the runners were polite and considerate. Two of the four wait staff did really well when they picked up used plates from our table – they did it French service – picking up each item from the table, even the little ginger dishes and soup bowls. Two of them didn't do so well, as the guys were impatient and ended up stacking the plates in front of our faces. We can see into the display kitchen – the Baos and dumplings are made FRESH to order. This is a place where you can have little items and Baos all day long. By little dishes, I mean xiaochi or "small eats" which is a feature of the Taiwanese food culture. So, even though there are only two of us, we are able to taste a greater variety of foods like dumplings, buns/Baos, noodles, and cooked vegetables without having to lug home bags of left over and then getting fed up with the left overs all week. Because most of the food we ordered were steamed, we found the food very clean and healthy. We ordered Vegan Wonton Soup, Vegan Dumplings, Vegan Buns, Vegan Stir-fried Shanghai Rice Cakes. The Vegan Buns were extremely well made, the dough was spongy, soft and fresh (as opposed to steamed from frozen), stuffing was filled with bean curd, baby bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, glass noodles and jicama. A favourite. I really like the broth in the wonton soup and we order that every time. Since we've become vegan, we have not tasted Shanghai Rice Cakes. It was very nice to be able to enjoy the vegan version. During our last visit, however, the rice cakes were cooked with too much oil and I ended up with an unpleasant greasy taste afterwards which the red beans sticky rice dessert wasn't able to remove. They have at least 8 or 10 individual washrooms which, are very clean, and very unlike traditional Chinese restaurant washrooms. I suspect they are actually cleaned after each use – I saw two attendants, and one was waiting for me to exit the one I just used to thoroughly...

The DTF experience…

I believe there has been a lot of hype up to the opening of this place over the years. And believing in what the foodies say nowadays is as good as believing that Elvis is alive. (DTF.. more like Down To Fast).

The restaurant is located on the whole second floor of the building on Alberni street in downtown Vancouver. Yes a few steps to climb to the restaurant.

Let’s put this place to the test and rip its hypes apart.

Anyways, here were the food I ordered;

Cucumber salad. These simple looking little things were actually pretty tasty and good. Definitely recommend this dish! Sweet and sour pork baby ribs. The sauce tasted pretty good but the ribs’ texture was almost like pork jerky chunks. The ribs could be a bit more tender. Hot and sour soup. The taste was on the lighter side, I would say it’s more like a Taiwanese Cantonese fusion style if that makes sense. Shrimp and pork spicy wontons. Taste wise was okay, the meat could be a little less stiff. Pork xiao long bao. They were actually pretty good, bite size but when put them together they are the same quantity of 5 that you get from other places. The broth was tasty; had a light clear taste which is good so your mouth doesn’t feel so gooey. However the meat was a bit grainy. Pork chop fried rice. Damn! One of the most tender and juicy pork chop I had in a long time, the fried rice was just standard. Black pepper beef tenderloin. Taste wise was okay, could be a bit more tender. The texture was a bit powdery, seems like it was cooked in a tub of sauce for too long (hint: chefs! use high heat wok to cook and caramelized the meat not let it bathe in a pool of sauce to cook them otherwise it will taste dry and powdery!!) Chocolate and mochi xiao long bao. I am not big on desserts but these little guys are pretty good especially if you have a sweet tooth. Side of sea salt cream. For dipping the chocolate xiao long bao. It didn’t do much for me.

Overall; the service was absolutely awesome! Aside from our server being informative and attentive; Each and every employees I passed by took a moment to say hi, thank you and bye when leaving. Honestly the fine dining service surprised me.

The restaurant’s layout and decoration is simple, modern and elegant. And it’s a big place with comfortable chairs and tables nicely spaced apart. I actually felt like I was fine dining at a high end restaurant but without having to worry about the formality but rather in my casual comfy self.

The food was okay, a few dishes could use a bit of improvement but overall it’s not bad and not as expensive as some reviews said.

In conclusion, the DTF experience was truly memorable; from initial skepticism to a wow factor. A definite repeat and...

They've finally opened a Din Tai Fung in Vancouver and you kinda have to wonder how well they will do in this fickle food town. I've been to a few other locations (States and Japan) and I have to say that three new location downtown pretty much replicates the others. You'll find an elevated aesthetic with a dumpling-centric menu and prices that creep up on the higher end.

Service is fairly attentive. Given how many people were working when we visited, it's no surprise. Not sure if the staffing level will stay like that in the future or if there was just more people working because they just opened recently and need to get everyone onboarded.

We ordered the classic Kurobuta Pork Xiao Long Bao ($19.5). These are on the smaller side of xlbs and there wasn't much soup on the inside (although the skin was fairly thin and not broken). I've had better at other Din Tai Fung locations so hopefully they will get a bit better. In terms of xlbs at other locations in Vancouver area, these would be mid-level... not bad but definitely not the best.

Another classic dish is the Cucumber Salad ($9.5) - these crunchy little cukes are a little spicy and pretty much meet our expectations doe DTF.

The Fried Pork Chop ($11.5) is a good little peppery side dish but I kinda wish this was served with something instead of just being a side.

We also had the Shrimp and Kurobuta Pork Steamed Dumplings ($21) and the Shrimp and Kurobuta Pork Spicy Wontons ($18). As expected, most of the menu offering is fairly limited. These were good (especially liked the folds on the steamed dumplings) but we were starting to get tired of the same flavours. The spicy wontons were not overly spicy.

We also had the Lemon Green Iced Tea ($7.5) and Mango Green Iced Tea ($7.5).

For dessert, we had the Sesame and Mochi Xiao Long Bao ($13.5). While these were really good (with moltan black sesame filling), a full order of these is a bit much for 2 people. Wish this came in a half order size.

Overall, fairly good with attentive service (they gave new utensils for dessert and asked if we wanted our dessert to come out last, lots of wait staff walking about) and a pretty interior. This place would definitely appeal to people dipping their toes into the wonders of Asian dumpling cuisine. Plus, they had cute plushies that you could buy!

However, as a place known for their XLBs, they don't meet the standard of some of the great places around town (mostly cheaper hole-in-the-wall spots) that already exist. Time will only tell how a fickle food city like Vancouver will be in keeping them...