What We Order at Din Tai Fung - Costa Mesa

A post shared by MonsterMunching (@monstermunching_oc) on Dec 15, 2017 at 10:17pm PST

Last night a miracle happened: The wait at Din Tai Fung South Coast Plaza at 6 p.m. on a Friday was less than 30 minutes.

If you're familiar with this restaurant, you know that its famous for two things: its juicy pork dumplings (a.k.a. xiaolongbao) and the long wait times. It's been especially bad at this location of the franchise. At one point during the month of its opening, it was a 7 hour wait to get a seat, which meant that if you wanted to have dinner, you'd have to check-in before lunch.

But last night, the stars somehow aligned. I was shocked when the hostess said it would be 15 to 30 minutes before we were seated.

We ate all the dishes we always order. Brined cucumber. Wood ear mushrooms in vinegar. Two orders of xiaolongbao. Pork chop fried rice. Braised beef soup. Green beans. Red bean dumplings for dessert.

And as always, we ordered way too much and stuffed ourselves silly. But this time, because we were able to eat at a reasonable hour, we were delighted to able to do some Christmas shopping in the mall afterwards. And for some reason, The Disney Store was offering discounts that made its toys actually affordable, which was an even bigger miracle!

Din Tai Fung
3333 Bristol St. Ste. 2071
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 549-3388

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