Paradise Dynasty — Restaurant in Costa Mesa

The obvious question: How does Paradise Dynasty compare to Din Tai Fung? I would say that Paradise Dynasty is comparable and holds up on its own.

There are quite a few complaints to be had about their opening and the growing pains that come with it. They claim to be in a “soft opening” and as a result, they are a waitlist only restaurant. While they do plan to take reservations eventually, at the time of writing, they only take a first come first serve reservation. Pro tip, even on weekdays, the wait list can grow to over an hour by the time they open, due to people lining up in advance.

This restaurant’s signature dish is the “Specialty Dynasty Xiao Long Bao”, which is an assorted 8 flavor Xiao Long Bao. There are eight different flavors, and this dish serves as a sampler of each of their flavors. Original Korobuta Pork, Luffa Gourd, Foie Gras, Black Truffle, Cheese, Crab Roe, Garlic, and Szechuan. It is actually recommended that you eat them in this order to best enjoy the flavors.

The most direct comparison between Paradise Dynasty and Din Tai Fung is the pork Xiao Long Bao, as this is a staple item of any dumpling restaurant. I think that both are delicious, and it would be very difficult to declare one as better than the other without trying them right next to each other.

The Luffa Gourd has a nice veggie flavor, while the Foie Gras and Cheese are more fatty flavors. The Crab Roe does have quite a strong crab taste, whereas the pork Xiao long bao is comparably mellow in flavor. The Black Truffle and Garlic were my two favorite, and unfortunately the Szechuan is not as spicy or flavorful as I would have hoped. Actually, none of the spicy dishes at this restaurant are actually spicy.

Perhaps their second most popular item is the “Pan-fried Shanghai Kurobuta Pork Bun”. This item was way more delicious that I was expecting. This bun has a pan fried bottom giving a little bit of crispy texture, but what was truly unexpected is how juicy the inside is. They pack an unexpected amount of broth in this bun, so much so that you bit in and feel like you are drooling with yummy broth dripping down your lips. This is truly delicious.

There are a handful of dishes served in a Chili Vinaigrette. The dumplings are pretty decent, and the chili vinaigrette does have a good subtle Szechuan taste. However, the amount of sauce given is quite small, and you should be aware that there are nuts on top.

I wanted to give their pork bone soups a try, given that they spend an entire page on their menu hyping up the broth. All of these soups are served with hand pulled noodles and either a pork bone broth, or dry, i.e. without broth. Each soup has an assortment of toppings, and I thought my prawn and kurobuta pork wantons were quite good. The broth is not as rich as a Japanese Ramen tonkotsu broth, but it is nice and flavorful and silky on its own. The noodles are the best part of this dish however. They are very tasty and full of flavor, which is a joy for any noodle dish.

Finally, for dessert, I got to try the “Chilled Aloe Vera and Osmanthus Jelly in Honey Lemon Juice”. This is a chilled dessert similar to an aloe drink one might consume. If you are a fan of aloe jelly drinks, you will love this. The jelly has perfect texture, and the lemon juice is not overly sweet or overly tart. A desert that has excellent flavor and is quite refreshing even after stuffing yourself before hand.

I got to try the Oolong Tea, which is good on its own. Nothing spectacular however. Do note that the tea does continue to seep in the pot, so it will continue to infuse throughout the meal. By the end of the meal it has over seeped in my opinion and is no longer as good. Best shared at the beginning of the meal.

I think every dish I tried is delicious, and this restaurant does a great job delivering items from the kitchen. The restaurant is already crazy popular already, and I hope that once they iron out their check in system, it can be a great dining experience...

This is my formal apology to Din Tai Fung for taking them for granted.

Where do I even begin? I came here on a Thursday evening and the wait was around 1.5 hours but it wasn't too bad considering the restaurant does have Yelp waitlist. Right when I got a text that my table was ready I went up to the host stand to alert the servers. I was greeted with no hospitality at all and even had to flag down the two workers who were right in front of me. I thought this was super unprofessional.

When we were seated and ready to order we were given the same rude, crass, and unprofessional service again. Our server did not warmly greet us and was even multitasking by talking to the table next to us while he was taking our order?! Unacceptable. Here, you order on a sheet and the server confirms it with you. I had marked a veggie dish, and for whatever reason it never came out. Honestly no big deal as we just placed an order for it again however I absolutely hated how the server approached the situation. Instead of simply just saying he would put in the order for us right away, he quite literally gaslit us and said "Oh I read it off and you did not listen" Like what?! Excuse me, I'm sorry if I perhaps was not paying attention enough, but that is certainly no way to speak to your restaurant's guests. This was an absolute abomination.

I'm only going to be brief about the food because in a nutshell they sell items that are similar to Din Tai Fung. However I did notice some things were more on the salty side. Nothing really stood out. There was one dish in particular that we did not care for which was this pork dish served with the rice wraps. It just wasn't for us as it was extremely salty, yet lacked any real flavor. The texture was also off. We had complained in a very civil and kind way to our server about it but he kind of just waved us off and said "Sorry that's the style". Look, I understand that if this was some random dim sum place in a Chinatown mall that charged less than $5 for dishes, for the service to be so horrible-- but it's not! This restaurant is located in South Coast Plaza for god's sake. However, we were able to speak to the manager, Jason and he was very kind about it and comped the dish off our bill. Honestly I would've given this review 1 star if it was not for Jason. Our server really ruined the dinner if I'm speaking candidly. I don't remember his name but he was an Asian male maybe in his 30s.

Essentially, yes this is my apology once again to Din Tai Fung and taking them for granted; their service and food is simply unmatched and makes Paradise Dynasty look like a Lucky Chinese Food in a strip mall.

This experience was one of the most appalling dinners...

Heard a lot about this place, a lot of social media posts and the place is generally pretty crowded when every time we visit the mall so you would think it must be pretty good? It wasn't.

We're all comparing this place to Din Tai Fung, right? It's weird how the staff pretend like they've never heard of it and have never been there. Really strange. The menu and vibe is pretty much a carbon copy. You have the window with people making XLB, all the same dumpling and bun options, it's a copycat restaurant but the food is worse.

We ordered three different XLB (traditional, szechuan, and cheese) hot and sour soup, fried rice with shredded pork and chicken wontons in chili oil. The soup and fried rice was your traditional fare, it was good, nothing to write home about. The wontons were gross and had this distinct weird flavor which would be a theme throughout the meal.

The XLB gets it's own paragraph, because that's "what they're known for". On the surface different flavor options are unique compared to DTF and have the potential to really set Paradise Dynasty apart from them, but they aren't good, not even the traditional ones, so that makes it that much worse. All three XLB options had a funky taste that was really unpleasant. Some of the bites had fatty or hard pieces of pork, something we never experience at DTF. The szechuan and cheese XLB had their own distinct bad flavors, they were really terrible and we each only had one before giving up on them. I really just don't think the flavor thing works on top of the bad pork filling.

Our server, Miles, to his credit did try to understand what wasn't working for us, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Everything just tasted off, almost spoiled or like feet? The only thing I could think of in retrospect is that everything on the menu has the shellfish allergen warning and that is due to the use of oyster sauce, which I cannot say I've had before or is in any other dumpling dish I've had before.

We were not offered any type of comp for the bad food, no manager came over, nothing that you would expect for a restaurant that gives off a high end vibe, just a "sorry you didn't like it". Miles did bring us a mango pudding which was pretty good, but still not enough for this expensive meal.

There is zero chance we will come back, I'd rather wait two hours in line at DTF across the mall than be...