Din Tai Fung, Chatswood

Intrigued by the concept of rainbow dumplings, I decided to take the plunge and visit Din Tai Fung for the first time. Located in a relatively isolated corner of Chatswood Westfield, the restaurant draws the eye with their ~kawaii~ dumpling mascot.

Entrance of Restaurant

Upon entering the restaurant, customers are greeted by a large view into the kitchen where chefs are carefully crafting endless amounts of dumplings:

Kitchen

After waiting a minute or two at the entrance for some seating direction from staff, I was assigned a table near the main entrance that had just been abandoned by a pair of other customers, which I thought was a little weird since staff didn't even bother cleaning or resetting the table. When seated, I peered studiously across their extensive menu:

Menu

However, I had pretty much already decided on what I wanted to order before I even stepped foot into this restaurant.

Dumpling Gems (7 pcs; $15.80) and Giant Xiao Long Bao ($8.90)

The rainbow dumplings were... interesting to say the least. Each dumpling had unique flavour including (clockwise from the yellow dumpling):

• Citrine (cheese)
• Onyx (BBQ pork)
• Emerald (salad green)
• Topaz (golden corn)
• Pink Diamond (seafood)
• Ruby (bolognaise)
• Sapphire (garlic pork)

As all dumplings are pork-based, they all tasted rather similar but with subtle flavour differences - I have to say the bolognaise and cheese ones were probably my least favourite as the flavours didn't quite work so well in the form of a pork dumpling.

Despite the gigantic size of the Xiao Long Bao, the chefs were able to maintain the ultra thin dough skin and generate copious amounts of flavoursome broth inside. The sad part about this dish was the disproportionately small amount of minced pork (less than the volume of two golf balls) inside the dumpling, which had already been combined with prawn, corn and dried fungus. I think the ultimate giant Xiao Long Bao would be like a lovechild of the ones made by Din Tai Fung (for the exterior) and Bistro Hulu (for the interior).

The biggest issue for me here was the relative lack of service from staff - as I was eating an early dinner, there wasn't that many customers in the restaurant, yet it took some time to flag the disinterested staff that were lingering around.

One peculiar thing about this restaurant is that the cashier is located far away from the entrance. No obvious signage is provided to indicate where it is so as a new customer, I was left to wander around the restaurant since staff failed to direct me to the cashier (or perhaps they assumed that I knew the way out) and eventually saw the 'cashier' sign after turning the corner around the kitchen area. The exit is located near the cashier, which explains the placement of the cashier but it prevents customers from re-entering directly into the shopping centre as you end up on the neighbouring street.

Upon stepping out, I let out a sigh of relief (and disappointment). For the price of the food, I would expect something better from their food and service. Better luck next time.