It’s the soup dumplings that saved the summer of the Big Apple.
Our slow, outdoor-focused dining scene needed a lift.
The end of last year saw big openings from Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Daniel Boulud and Andrew Carmellini, but the last few months have been much less exciting and the new autumn crop looks thin.
Thankfully, there has been a big bright spot recently. Oddly enough, it’s a 425-seat chain restaurant from Taiwan, in a location that was last home to the outer space-themed tourist trap Mars 2112.
Like the Paris Olympics, Din Tai Fung (1633 Broadway, Midtown, DinTaiFungUSA.com) which opened a month ago, has brought some excitement to the waning weeks before Labor Day.
Its famous Xiao Long Bao helped spark the New York craze for soup plates, which began fifteen or so years ago at Shanghai Joe’s in Chinatown, although Din Tai Fung didn’t quite make it there.
It was worth the wait and the trouble to get in.
Din Tai Fung occupies 26,000 square feet of the basement level at Broadway and West 51st Street. An elevator takes you from the street-level plaza down to a spacious, multi-sectioned floor, designed by Rockwell Group. There are a multitude of nooks, crannies and bamboo screens, all supposedly inspired by a Chinese courtyard house and garden.
It is the first New York outpost among Din Tai Fung’s 180 locations worldwide, including 16 in the US.
Such globe-trotting, Chinese-themed empires usually spawn 1,000-year-old Manhattan eggs, remember the quick-fire Da Dong and Hakkasan?
But unlike those flops, Din Tai Fung won’t be gone for long.
Menus are divided into categories such as appetizers, noodles, noodles and wok dishes. But the soup dumplings ($18 to $19 for ten) filled with pork, pork and crab or chicken are the act to catch.
They are gathered inside a glass-walled room by an army of cooks wearing surgical masks and white T-shirts and aprons. They resemble lab technicians as they squeeze, pour and fold with military precision.
The soup dumplings are smaller and firmer than the standard New York items, which often wiggle on the spoon like jellyfish and gush like geysers at the first bite.
The Din Tai mushrooms are al dente rigatoni as pleasing to the touch, thanks to an 18-step hand-folding process that folds perfectly into the skin of each patty and achieves the so-called golden ratio with the delicious fillings.
The ginger-colored liquid pours just enough without wetting you. The fillings are silky on the tongue and explosive on the palate.
My favorites were the ones filled with Kurobata pork and crab meat tender enough for a child to eat. The fiery chili base sauce adds an extra dimension of indulgence.
I also enjoyed the chewy, sliced pork over egg white rice and the modestly named cucumber salad, a cold and refreshing garlic-chili-sesame affair that’s just the thing on a day or steamy night.
Too bad the website booking portal is almost useless. On Wednesday, for example, it showed no available booking options. A wait time checkbox charmingly said the place is not taking reservations now try again later.
They don’t get any walks, although they seem to have room for them.
On both of my visits, I was horrified but not surprised that about 25% of the seats were empty, despite a supposedly months-long waiting list.
The servers told me that the intentional back up is just to make sure the staff is up to speed.”
I suspect there may be other calculations at play.
Din Tai Fung is based in Taipei, but knows that New York is training for future short-term profit to generate long-term demand.
Either way, I can’t wait to go back to try the black pepper noodles, soups and filet if I can get a table.
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Image Source : nypost.com