Din tai fung

It's been a while since The Critic and I have had a chance to go out just the two of us.  The occasion of "The Ball Gym" came up for The Guys to hang out for the evening and The Critic and I decided  to return to Din Tai Fung.

Here's the brief story of our first time to go.  We went soon after they opened with The Guys and, well, it was a disaster.  The wait was horrendous which we expected, but even after receiving our pager that our table was "ready" we probably waited 30 more minutes before being served.  Apparently this is common because the same thing happened tonight -- though it is truthfully just easier to deal with that delay without little kids in tow. 

Once we were finally seated (last time) it was one whiny whine after another... the food is too hot, too cold, too mixed together, I don't like [fill in the blank], that looks weird, that smells weird, I don't even know what that is... this might not seem unusual with little kids but ours aren't usually so vocal about their complaints and as far as asian food goes, DTF is really recognizable.  What kid doesn't like a potsticker?  Ours apparently.  Weirdos.

So basically based on that first experience we didn't understand the hype.  It was okay, but not outstanding.

Enter phase two:  Operation Don't-Bring-The-Kids-This-Time.  Guess what?  The food is WAY better without the whine!  The whole experience is more fun -- atmosphere, company, and even the waiting.  We had a great time.  The following notes and pictures will be used on our next phase:  Operation Return-To-Din-Thai-Fung... not sure if that will be with The Guys or not.

First up is the waiting game.  The fun part of this is watching the skilled chefs make the dumplings.  One of these was the famous juicy pork, the other was some kind of dessert with black bean curd I think.

After a lengthy wait, we finally sit down and from there on out, it's actually a pretty fast process to order and be served.  

We began with a plan.  Thankfully they have a HUGE picture menu and, as I might have already mentioned, we had a few minutes (or 30) to peruse it.  So the plan was as follows:  Famous juicy pork buns, shrimp and crab shi mao, and some chicken noodle dish.  We also went back and forth on trying to remember if the garlic green beans were worth it, or not.  I think we finally decided no, we'd pass.  Once our server arrived, he had other suggestions.  First thing he said... "Have you had our shrimp and pork wontons with spicy sauce?"  "No."  "You have to try them."  "We were going to get the pork buns instead."  "Yes, those are good.  But the wontons are amazing."  "We've had wontons tons of places.  They are really that special?"  "They are REALLY that special."  He went on to suggest we try a rice cake dish instead of the noodles -- he got The Critic's attention with the words "like the Asian version of gnocchi".  So, with suggestions in our head, plans changed.  Here's the final product we ended up with.

Crab and Juicy Pork Dumplings -- eat these in one bite or they drip all over.  We liked them dipped in soy sauce with ginger added to it.  In the future, skip the crab.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't apparent either.  Save the few pennies extra and just go with the juicy pork.

Here they are!  Shrimp and Pork Wonton with Spicy Sauce.  The Critic didn't think the sauce was that spicy but I sure did.  We finally realized it was because I needed to eat one in about 3 bites where he could just inhale it.  The result was that my lips burned but his were fine.  So worth it though.  These are as delicious as our server implied!

Shang Hai Rice Cake with Chicken -- These were delicious as well.  The rice cakes looked very much like water chestnuts so the texture would throw me off every now and then but the flavor was really good.  Definitely need to get this again sometime!

Sautéed String Bean with Garlic -- Ultimately we decided we needed more vegetables.  Granted the amount of oil used to sautée them sort of negates the "healthiness" of them.  Like bacon wrapped asparagus or fried zucchini... anyway, these were DELICIOUS and we need to remember next time that YES they are worth it.  Not soggy, lots of garlic flavor.  Delicious.