Din Tai Fung — Restaurant in Santa Monica

RUDE MANAGEMENT AND BAD LEADERSHIP! Those two will sink the best built ships. This restaurant is in a great location, the decor and vibe are off the hook! Staff was so friendly and courteous, which is exactly why we chose this place to welcome a relative to LA, on his first trip here, straight from LAX. Our reservation was late in the evening, and that could be why we had this experience. Employees were probably tired and dropped the ball, but how could the management do the same? What kind of example are they setting for their employees and what standard for customers? We ordered an abundant amount of food, and halfway through the meal we got our surprise. A long disgusting black hair in the pork/rice dish. We notified the manager on duty, he came and attempted to pull it out, and it fell on two other dishes. Truthfully, he was just as shocked as we were, but not even close to how disgusted we were. He removed the plates and said he takes this matter very seriously, apologized and promised to make it right. Our guest was gagging because he was the one who discovered it as he was serving himself. He pushed his plate away and struggled to remain at the table. He did not have one bite after this!!!! The other party at the table, including myself, sat and ate what we could stomach, awkwardly, while our esteemed guest watched us in disgust. A few minutes later, we asked to cancel whatever food wasn’t prepared yet, and whatever was ready they asked if they could still send it home with us. You don’t visit such an establishment for the sole purpose of eating survival food! This is supposed to be an experience, to eat, enjoy, socialize, build memories, specially with your first time visitor guest. You shouldn’t have to think about how you get treated, let alone getting unrequested and unsanitary inclusions in your food. Two tables next to us were live streaming their food experience, they were enjoying their food, and the vibe, and how I wish we could too. What takes this to the next level is yet to come, with the bill of course. This was what added insult to injury: a giant discount for the cucumber salad appetizer we ordered and the plate that had the hair in it. We didn’t ask for a discount on the bill, we were told the bill was getting taken care of. The insulting gesture came from who we thought was the general manager, but it turns out he wasn’t the general manager. How do I know this? I had the displeasure of meeting her when I went to pay for the bill, and I brought this to her attention. She repaid my kindness of keeping this discreet by speaking with her away from the streaming patrons by constantly talking over me and arguing. It wasn’t worth my time, and my guests were already at the door, I begged for the bill to just leave already. I was treated like a cheap patron that was trying to get out of a bill instead of a patron that was embarrassed to no end and who couldn’t finish their meal. I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t ask for our night and experience to be ruined, or to get embarrassed in front of our guest in a place we so raved about and attend on the regular. We asked to pay full price for food like we always do! We asked to enjoy a beautiful restaurant in a pristine location like we usually do. We always respect the places we go to and demand they show us the same. But this time we didn’t get what we asked for, we didn’t get the dining experience like everyone else did, and we didn’t ruin it for everyone else. Instead, we had to pay for food that we couldn’t stomach and to sit awkwardly, looking for more hair in the rest of the dishes and worrying with every bite. Thanks but no thanks. This place doesn’t respect their patrons nor do they deserve us. We showed this place a lot of respect, courtesy and restraint and we didn’t get the same back. Not a good trade and not worth any of our...

Came here for dinner reservation I made at 4:15. On Sunday .I called an hour prior if me and my two guest can come earlier and see if we can be accommodated to sit outdoor on the patio. Host on the phone kindly suggested a few minutes before due to it not being as busy as usual. Me and my friends arrived at 3:50 the nice host said they can seat us a little early. Nice young man who walked us to our table told us how it’s not that busy today so it was easy to accommodate us.

Lorenzo was our set for for the first half of our experience. Unfortunately it seemed a little delayed to get to us. But he was kind nonetheless the less. We asked for sparkling water which took a while to get to us and ordered our food and drinks. First few dishes started getting dropped right away. Still no drinks. We waited being patient. Water dropped and still no cocktails that we ordered. By the time we got our cocktails dropped it was about 4:50 almost an hour after we sat. And unfortunately mine did get dropped by the server glass went everywhere where I thought it was some of the table and it clearly wasn’t I was sitting across and have to get glass off my jacket and hair and pants. Lorenzo called for a manager on his headset multiple times. A nice young woman came up and I asked her if she can remove all our food worried about glass. She had a napkin in her hand where I proceeded to pull off glass off myself and my clothes and slightly got pricked on my hand and put multiple shards of glass in her napkin. Again mistakes happen. The food was being refried and the drinks remade. Offered us a new table but we were being understanding and just asked them to clean it as we went to the bathroom to get the rest of the glass out of my hair. Now I understand mistakes happen but it was the lack of hospitality I encountered afterwards. Food all dropped no drinks still just one for myself. Had to ask for water again and got a nice new server named Ella. Multiple pass by and you can clearly see we had no beverage again. And no check back with other server. Until later.We figured she just wanted interested picking up the pieces from the last hiccup. Manager pop in and said she’s taking care of the appetizers. When we clearly had more on the table at the time of the incident. It ruined the whole experience for myself. And to be honest we go to the Glendale location frequently and we were disappointed. We got a billed dropped for 260.00 and personally I was offended. I’ve been a beverage director for years and a trainer in DC. THIS IS NOT HOSPITALITY. Manager should have took over to recover the table and drop the drinks. The Glendale location seems like a all hands on deck vibe. Here I couldn’t get no one to clear a plate or refill a caraft of still water. I was personally offended. I asked the manager kindly that this isn’t going to do and to pull the camera tapes you can clearly see there wasn’t proper steps to be made. I reiterated as there were plates of dirty dishes between us because we didn’t get good service. The fact that the manager didn’t even drop the check to begin with was an insult and lack of care. I waited two days and no email or call even after she asked for my information. When she came back and asked for my information even though I was in the reservation I still gave it to her and she proceeded to inform me that they don’t watch the cameras like that to do that. I laughed it off at this point. This was truly such a shame experience. In the end we still got charged a little over 160.00 for our bill. I’m writing this not to expect anything but to see how mistreated this situation was and maybe there needs to be more of an in...

Booths in the sort-of shape of basket steamers, a glassed-in performance kitchen and an authentic" way of eating the dumplings (poke a hole and suck out the liquid first --not at all like the inviting Arcadia location a Chinese-American food friend introduced me to a decade ago.

So it's really helpful to know before you go into this slicked up version of Din Ti Fung to consider it more a tribute to the concept of meticulous almost machine-like dumpling making in Taipei, Taiwan by original owners Bing-Yi Yang and wife than a replica. Wish I had known!

The first week of the hard opening on a rainy day, with plenty of empty tables, this place at the far west side of Santa Monica Place had plenty of empty tables at the end of lunch hour. The outside guard waved us in and the Chinese-American manager acted as though we had come last minute to the Met Gala. (Bowen Yang would do a GREAT skit using him as a role model). Already so not in the spirit of the founders. Even the name: Din ("wok" Tai ("peace of "safe") Fung ("abundance" "plentiful")

It all got sorted out with bar seating and one of the majority American servers who recites the menu and manner of eating the dishes like a Disney guide pro. He also gave us a business-like account of the business end expectations at this place.

Yes, Kurugbuta pork is used in the xialongbao and other dishes, meticulously prepared -- and you can see this in the machine-like precision of the performance kitchen.

Much more expensive than the original location, and with the same customer frenzy as at Century City, I'll wait to go...