Are Din Tai Fung Soup Dumplings The BEST?

So it's finally happening after years of being mocked by like my wife friends No less of never eating at this place of this place being the best soup dumplings in the world How no soup dumpling in New York's as good as this place? Finally I am here ding typhoon Okay, I'm not in the Taiwan location, which I would think would be the most authentic, but you know what close enough It's close enough. I'm in LA, but you know what's crazy obviously we don't have one of these in New York There were like two within five miles of my hotel, I mean do you really need that many How about sending one over to us? I cannot even begin to describe my excitement I've been really wanting to eat at this place for years And I actually booked a trip to Taiwan later this year, but I'm in LA now So of course I gotta try this place out, and then you know I'll go to Taiwan later to see if that one's even better But there's never anything wrong with eating more soup dumplings. Okay. Here's my only dilemma Typically in New York the soup dumplings comes in groups of five or six sometimes eight Here all the soup dumplings are in like you know groups of ten and there's so many I want to try like they have the soup and in the crab and then Soaky squash and shrimp oh And this one this one's crazy truffle and pork Truffle and pork so I had to research it and someone said they use like real truffle in this one That's probably why this thing costs $21.50 for five of them, and then when I was on Yelp I saw a lot of pictures of the xiaomai, which is really not a soup dumpling But they said it's really good here, and then dessert, okay You guys remember I showed you guys the chocolate soup dumplings, so they have red bean xiaolongbao and sweet taro xiaolongbao Yeah, of course they each are in groups of ten I mean, so what am I gonna do am I really gonna order like like 30 35 pieces of soup dumplings? Yeah, I am. I mean how often do I ever get a come and get at this place? So I'm gonna try as many dumplings as my heart desire and my heart desires all of them and for dessert I'm gonna get the red bean xiaolongbao because you guys know I don't really like taro I don't really understand it. I feel like taro doesn't really even understand itself So I'm not gonna go for that. I'm gonna go for the sweet red bean I'm gonna see how they're gonna make it like soupy because xiaolongbao typically it's soup dumplings, right? So how do you make like red bean soupy? Maybe it's not even soupy Maybe it's just like kind of dry which will kind of defeat the purpose And that wouldn't be that good and it's a Thursday at like 830 and this place is packed I had to wait about 20 minutes to get in So far like all the waitstaffs been really really nice the hostess like just abnormally nice I don't know if that's because I'm in LA or that's how this whole restaurant chain operates This is the biggest teacup ever see I think it's a teacup if it is This is the biggest teacup I have ever seen at a soup dumpling place. Oh and they have chili oil here Whoa, okay That looks pretty legit legit chili oil Vinegar soy sauce. Okay. I'm all set So let's get ready to scare the waitress with my crazy order and I did find out this is not a teacup Thank God, this is a soup bowl in case they give you noodle soups or whatever you use this. I order jasmine Tea, they import the tea from Taiwan, which is awesome. They gave me like like all that. That's awesome. That's cool Smells so good I'm not like a tea connoisseur, but Yeah, I like this. This is like a real tea. Look at the size of this thing. Alright, so let me try some of these authentic Taiwan tea Hmm I forgot something. Yeah, I know nothing about tea. Is it good? Is it not good? I can't even tell you There was one time in my life. I was at a Culinary competition and there was a vendor selling tea and I kid you not she was selling it for ten thousand dollars a pound Not kidding ten thousand dollars a pound. So then she was giving away, you know little cups of sample tea for free So, of course, I'm curious I'm looking at this tea like ten thousand dollars a pound if I buy this tea for ten thousand dollars a pound and I drink it I better be gaining some supernatural abilities afterwards. I better be able to fly after drinking that tea But anyway, she offered me a little cup. So you want to try it? Yeah, of course, I want to try a ten thousand dollar tea. So then I drink a little cup She asked me how I was and you know what? I couldn't even begin to tell her if it was good or not because to me it tastes like tea. I'm sorry I can't I can't taste the difference between good tea bad tea But you know what? I can tell the difference between powder milk tea and fresh brewed milk tea I do want to say that the waitress as I was basically checking off every soup dumpling on the menu She didn't look at me like I was some kind of dumpling addict that snorts dumpling up my nose or something Okay, here's how bad I am with tea. The waitress brought me, you know, the tea kettle a teacup And she also brought me this which is ginger, but I almost went and asked her if I was supposed to add this to my tea My truffle soup dumpling has arrived. Look at this. So it looks like a regular soup dumpling. These are really small I mean look at my hands. Okay, my hands are ginormous The waitress told me for the truffle soup dumplings, you're not supposed to add any vinegar any ginger Just eat it as it is. So again five soup dumplings was like $22, $21.50, $22. All right, there doesn't seem to be too much soup inside Let me try to pour the soup out like I usually do Smells really really aromatic Wow That's a big hint of truffle flavor in this. Let me try to bite this in half Whoa You guys see? There's actually truffle inside. You can see the truffle inside. Wow Big pieces of truffle too. Wow That's really good If you like truffle, you'll love this. I like truffle This has a big truffle flavor. They don't just sprinkle some cheap truffle oil on this There's slices of truffle in this thing and that's delicious And also I just ate like five dollars. Look how tiny these are. The New York soup dumplings can eat these soup dumplings. Oh Awesome idea. Oh, what if somebody invented soup dumplings with soup dumplings inside? What? I mean look, is this really worth like the $5 per bite? I probably wouldn't get this on a regular basis, but you know what if you're just in town trying this out Yeah, why not? Try this. Also the skin is really thin and the skin, you know what? Doesn't really taste like the typical soup dumpling skin that you get. Like the typical soup dumplings that I've had The skin is, well the good ones anyway, the skin is thin But the skin itself is also very moist and soft and kind of breaks away in your mouth So this skin, I feel like it's uh, you can taste a layer of difference Between like the soup dumpling filling itself and the skin So the skin kind of adds a layer of texture and that texture actually gives it a different kind of taste in your mouth Which is good. All right, gotta mix my sauce now so ginger a little soy sauce This is the first time I'm actually mixing my own soup dumpling sauce. A lot of vinegar Definitely hot oil. Gotta add the hot oil And I like it that this is real hot oil not some sort of like, you know, like the garlicky hot sauce type of thing All right, so more of my pork soup dumpling has arrived. First of all, I can eat like 50 of these Take a look at these crab soup dumplings These don't really even look like crab soup dumplings because usually you know in New York There's crab. There's the orange innards of the crab on top so you can tell it's like a crab soup dumpling But this one just like looks like any other soup dumpling. So, let's see how it is What I typically like to do is I pour the soup out And then I add some vinegar and hot oil to it. I drink the soup and then I take my soup dumpling and I dip that in my vinegar and ginger and hot oil Then I eat this in one bite That's really good actually you can really taste the crab flavor in that so let's try the regular soup dumpling you know what and some of you might have an issue with my method of eating soup dumplings, but To each his own this way. I like to eat it I don't like to some people like to bite the top and then drink it directly from the bun I don't like to I'd like to pour it up mix it with some sauce. That's how I like to handle my dumpling business That's pretty good the meat filling It's diced up really well in these dumplings in New York The filling is more. I think it's more substantial because there's bigger pieces of meat I think here everything is diced up very finely check it out guys So this show my is that pretty adorable It actually looks like if you put like eyes and nose in the mouth here This looks like a little dumpling guy with a you know with a hair full of shrimp So I'm actually kind of confused on how to eat this So I guess I just take a bite just dip it in sauce and take a bite Wow, it's really just shrimp and pork And it's like it's like a shrimp on top of a pork soup dumpling because there is soup inside this dumpling I don't thought I would like a shrimp with my soup dumpling, but It gives it an interesting texture because the shrimp is more crunchy, okay? I'm getting the soup dumpling sweats and my final serving of soup dumpling has arrived and this is the red bean soup dumplings Now as I mentioned before I didn't know how they're gonna make this soup dumpling have soup in them because you know It's red beans. Actually, I don't need a fork Yeah, let's give this a try I didn't know how they're gonna pull this off, and there's no soup inside just red bean paste So it really should just be like red bean dumpling not like red bean xiao long bao Well actually xiao long bao in Chinese don't mean soup dumpling. It just means buns comes in a little basket So I guess there's no promise of soup in here. I was hoping there was soup in here. There is not It's just a red bean paste Still good Disappointing. All right verdict time. I heard so much about this place obviously it might taste different in Taiwan so Comparing this to the best place I ever had soup dumplings in New York, which is called a kung fu soup dumplings kung fu xiao long bao I gotta tell you guys here in LA I'm sorry New York, New York's got you beat in a xiao long bao category. I'm sorry. I gotta be honest with you I had really good food while I was here I was really pulling for you in the soup dumpling category because if you had really good soup dumplings I might just have to move here I mean you guys drive around in a parking lot all day, but if you had awesome soup dumplings That's better than New York. That's definitely gonna push LA over the top, but I'm sorry. I mean it was good. Don't get me wrong Din Tai Fung a really good place if you never tried it before it really should try it. It's an institution I'm gonna try it again when I get to Taiwan, but Sorry, my soup dumpling place in New York. I feel like the meats. There's it's more substantial The soup there's more of it. It's more flavorful. The dumpling wrappers are more tender and melts in your mouth more It's actually got a dessert soup dumpling that actually has soup inside for all those reasons I've got to conclude that New York has better soup dumplings than Los Angeles But hey you guys got a much better Japanese food. We don't even have a little Tokyo You guys got burger joints that's open at like 6 in the morning, which is awesome We don't have that but anyway glad I tried it glad I was able to process off my bucket list so today I ate like 35 to 40 dumplings here, and you know what I'm not even completely full Oh, I forgot to say something before I leave this place um one thing this place were maybe in LA's in general The service is Awesome everyone was smiling like you never see New York waiters smile unless you're like in a really nice restaurant No waiters gonna smile at you at a Chinatown restaurant. These are like happy Chinese servers sure I've never seen that before But anyway, I just wanted to say you guys definitely have that going for you