About Din Tai Fung

How many restaurants can say that they’ve achieved so much international success that a case study about them is being taught at famous Ivy league business schools like Harvard?

Din Tai Fung was founded by Bing-Yi Yang in the late 1950s as a retail shop that specialized in cooking oil. As Bing-Yi looked for new ways to increase the shop’s revenue, he added a small counter that sold bao buns. The bao buns soon began outselling the cooking oil, and before long, the retail portion of the shop was dropped, and Din Tai Fung was born. 

Today, the restaurant chain has legions of fans, 170+ locations around the world, and one of the Hong Kong locations has earned a prestigious Michelin star. 

What to Know Before You Go

Din Tai Fung typically does not take reservations during peak dining hours, which includes lunch and dinner service. You may be able to book a table online outside of those hours, we’re talking 10:30 am or 9:30 pm, but that’s not a guarantee.

Because the demand for a table is so high, the seating policy is one that have you enter a standby line. The restaurant will take your name and phone number and provide you with an approximate wait time. A good rule of thumb if you want to dine at Din Tai Fung Costa Mesa or any of the Din Tai Fung locations is to expect an hour-plus wait time.

Given that the Costa Mesa location is in Orange County’s popular South Coast Plaza mall, this isn’t terrible. There are so many great shopping – and window shopping – opportunities that the hour wait will fly by.

When your table is ready, you will receive a text. From there, you have 15 minutes to check in for your table.

If you don’t want to dine in the main dining room, Din Tai Fung also has a small bar seating area that takes walk-ins.

The Dining Experience 

The first thing you notice as the hostess escorts you back to your seat is how clean, modern, and sleek the interior is. Natural light fills the restaurant, and the atmosphere is bustling with customers enjoying themselves. The second thing you notice, and perhaps the coolest feature of dining at Din Tai Fung, is the glass enclosure off of the main dining room where you can watch the staff actually making all manner of dumplings. 

There are also a dozen employees behind the glass rolling dough, filling dumplings, and then sealing these beautiful creations. It’s both fascinating and enjoyable to watch them. You get an even greater appreciation for this work when you learn that each dumpling maker must train at each dumpling station for at least six months before moving on to the next task!

The Food

As you might already know, the signature dish at Din Tai Fung is the xiao long bao, which is a “soup dumpling.” You can choose between two types of xiao long bao, the Kurobuta Pork Long Bao or Crab and Kurobuta Pork. When the dish arrives steaming hot from the kitchen, your server will explain to you that the best way to eat a xiao long bao is to use your chopstick to poke a hole in the dumpling to allow steam to release before digging in. This way, you won’t burn your mouth when eating it. Once the soup cools down, you can sip or slurp the broth before enjoying the delicate dumpling. 

Not only are the soup dumplings incredibly savory, but each has 18 individual pleats along the side, making them true culinary works of art. Definitely a must-try dish. 

While the dumplings are the restaurant’s biggest draw, there doesn’t seem to be a bad dish on the menu. We also enjoyed delicate Vegan Dumplings with a beautiful green skin, Vegan Spicy Wontons filled with bean curd, baby bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, glass noodles, and jicama, and served in a house spicy sauce, and topped with garlic and diced green onions. A refreshing Cucumber Salad with Fresno chili peppers and fresh garlic, and Truffle and Kurobuta Pork Dumplings.

A bottle of crisp 2021 Château St. Michelle Sauvignon Blanc was the perfect complement to the food.  

Final Thoughts

Dining at Din Tai Fung was truly a 5-star experience. From the food, to the service, to the fun bustling atmosphere, everything was top-notch. We would not hesitate to recommend this restaurant to our friends looking for dining options at South Coast Plaza or to anyone looking for elevated Taiwanese food in Orange County.