A Din Tai Fung Story

We were having dinner at Din Tai Fung South Coast Plaza when a Caucasian guy in his twenties wearing a Detroit Tigers baseball cap and camouflage pants sat down at the table next to us. He was with an older gentleman, a man of about sixty who looked like a frazzled version of the Dos Equis guy.

Since the tables at Din Tai Fung are close together, we couldn’t help but overhear the conversation. Turns out they were father and son. As they looked at the menu, the son tells the dad that he’ll order “the good stuff”.

“Leave it to me”, he says to the older man.

The dad, who obviously had not been there before, looked apprehensive. His hands were folded across his chest. Though he didn’t say it, you could tell he was uncomfortable.

“Why couldn’t we just get a burger somewhere?” I imagined him thinking.

Then their food started arriving. And as the older man sampled each dish, we watched how he reacted with baited breath. On the stir fried broccoli, he exclaimed “Wow, this is so fresh!” On the wontons in chili oil, he repeated one word: “Delicious!”

When it came to eating a juicy pork dumpling, the son instructed the father on how to pick it up with chopsticks, dip it in the vinegar and then sip the soup after biting off the top.

He loved it.

Dish after dish, we witnessed this man’s conversion from skeptic to believer. All throughout the meal, the son kind of beamed--and so did we.

Din Tai Fung
3333 Bristol St.
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 549-3388

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