Din Ding Dumpling House Fremont — Restaurant in Fremont

Food 3.7/5 Cucumber Salad 3/5 This was average, the sizes of the cucumbers were a tad larger than I was used to.

Pork & Crab Xiao Long Bao 4/5 The Xiao Long Bao has plenty of soup. I would say they have even more soup in them than Din Tai Fung's Xiao Long Bao. You'll really want to grab a spoon for these. By the time they are on the table, they aren't super hot, so it's fairly safe to take a bite into them and sip the soup without your tongue being on fire.

Fish Dumplings 3.5/5 The fish dumplings were ok. I think the skin of the dumplings are fairly thick on these making it a tad difficult to taste the fish inside. Overall, not bad though.

Qishan Minced Meat Noodle 3/5 These are served on an average plate with a pair of scissors. The noodles are long, so when you take some noodles to transfer to your plate, you'll want to cut the noodles. It was stated on the mention to be hot & spicy, but to be honest, it's super mild at best. These noodles are served cold, and didn't have as much flavor as I had hoped.

Strawberry Chocolate Xiao Long Bao (Dessert) 5/5 These were great and remind me of the ones at Din Tai Fung. The skin for these are a tad thinner than the Din Tai Fung ones, so it's easier to take a smaller bite without the chocolate gushing out. My date really enjoyed these, and I thought they were really good as well.

Service 1/5 My date and I arrived a few minutes before the restaurant opened and the tablet at the front to add yourself to a queue was powered off. A waiter immediately greeted us and were told to choose anywhere to sit. We chose a 4 person table so that we would have room for the dishes. Every table has a small dish with some food on it along with a menu and pencil you can mark your orders on. Soon after we started filling it out, we were immediately asked to move to a smaller table. They should not tell their guests to choose anywhere to sit if they don't actually want you to sit anywhere.

The dishes all came out pretty fast, but they didn't really offset the timing for their main dishes vs their dessert dishes. Typically, dessert dishes should be served after people are done eating their main dishes, but that wasn't the case here. Once the last dish was served, they immediately put the check on the table, which symbolizes that they want to you finish fast and leave.

While we were still eating, they came by and put a bag take out containers on the table. It was clear the to hurry up and clear out the table (This was around the 40 minute mark for us. Once we finished up and started to pay, they came by and put only some of our left overs into the box, and left. We put the rest of the left overs in the other containers ourselves. They come by to take the bill. Then another person comes by and urges us to leave before returning our check, because there are people waiting to be seated. We told them, we are still waiting for our check to be returned with our cards to sign.

We were only there for a little over an hour and found the overall service to be poor. Eating while being rushed the whole time is not good, and restaurants that are known to get busy should already plan for this.

Ambience and Design 3.5/5 This looks like a fairly new place and has an overall nice looking vibe. There are plenty of 2-4 person tables throughout the restaurant. The place has 2 entrances, one for people to queue up to dine in and another for take out orders.

I think the 2 person tables should be larger or their steamer baskets should be smaller. Our 1 steamer basket took up almost the entire table, and each time they brought out another dish it was like playing a game of Tetris to get it to fit on the table. Restaurants should take their dish sizes into account when selecting tables. This is not their first location, so it's not like they don't know how large their dishes are.

I found the experience at the Union City location to be much better. They are also always packed as well, but I've never felt rushed over there. I think the food was also better at the Union City...

Din Ding just opened their new location in Fremont, and I’ve been wanting to try it all this time — and it finally came true last Friday when I went to go have it with my parents! Such a staple place coming here — and it means that one would not have to drive as far as Union City just for good quality XLB that hits just as equally as Din Tai Fung.

Though my experience was great, there are, obviously, some caveats and some things that could have been prevented from happening throughout my still great experience. However, let me save that for the descriptive parts of this review, which will reveal for themselves at a later time.

Here’s my experience about the whole time: I love the modern chic of the restaurant — it was giving VERY vibrant and I loved the color scheme that it was alluding. Very high, very open — except the entrance was certainly not the case. It was very confusing to know which one the entrance REALLY was, honestly, and that threw me off guard to be quite fair. As we were seated we were given hot water instead of tea. Hmm weird -- but also we had asked for it, so no complaining that much anyhow.

Here’s where the foodie brains come in: 

The crab XLB was honestly very juicy, and very filling. That was by far the most that I’ve ever eaten in one sitting — like at least three or four of them I gulped down. The soup, on the other hand, was barely salted, and it tasted hella bland. The only reason I put so much was because it wouldn’t seem like it if it was actually the case. The fried rice was a little bit too oily - but seasoned just right to make it taste with consistency.

The hospitality felt a little rushed — and at first sight, we were given the wrong dishes — we were like “what was going on?” But they quickly corrected themselves and handled their demeanor with professionalism. It also contributed to the atmosphere feeling very tense on a Friday night too, so perhaps that was also the reason why.

I’d definitely go back to this location forsure, to try more new dishes once again! But with...

This dumpling place is the 2nd most popular in the Bay Area. Din Ding has been on my radar quite a while but for some reason, circumstances prevented me from eating here, like the late lunch yesterday while they were closed.

On a Sunday morning, the wait was about 15-20 minutes. For some reason, we weren't able to join wait list through the app because it showed that there was zero wait. We thought Jackpot!!! Actually no. You'll see people spilling into the chairs and hanging out outside. There's a tablet in the corner on the immediate left of the doorway. There, you'll see the true wait estimate. Do not stand idly during that time. It'll be well-spent to study the menu and start marking off your order. Interesting how phone numbers were collected during the wait list process but there's a dude who calls out the name. Not sure if it's my hunger but every name sounded like "Melinda." No joke because I've gotten up 3 times mistakenly thinking my name was called.

We selected pork and crab XLB, pork and shrimp potstickers, fish dumplings, hot chili oil noodles, and garlic spinach. The amount of soup inside the XLB filled the little soup spoon. Next, I dunked the dumpling into the ginger and vinegar. Yum! My favorites were the noodles and the potstickers. How they fused the potstickers together was brilliant. The dipping sauce perfectly complemented each delightful morsel. The noodles were fresh and had a nice chewy texture, with a good amount of heat. By the time the fish dumplings were served, I've reached my limit and ready to throw in the towel. After sampling one, we were surprised with the mild flavor of the fish.

Luckily the food came quickly, which is astounding in the bustling restaurant. Appears to be a well-run operation. Service was good. Whatever request we had, we were immediately assisted.

This place is worth ALL the hype and accolades. I already have a mental list of dishes to...