Din Tai Fung: chicken soup
Brief note: besides my favorite soup dumplings in town, try their house special chicken soup. It is just double-steamed chicken soup - almost no other flavors besides chicken.
It is the best of the pure, fresh, sweet, concentrated taste of chicken thing I've had in this town. It puts most other broths to shame. I've had broth like this before, but only from very small grandmothers raised in other countries, or maybe certain New York bouroughs.
It is like nectar of chicken.
-thi
By Thi N.
on Aug 23, 2004 11:21 AM
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Thi-
I agree -the chicken soup is great. But the DinTaiFung mothership in Taipei's chicken soup with same preparation but much more flavorful Taiwanese chicken is unreal.
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Thi? Must you call xiaolongbao soup dumplings? I know that's become the name in New York, but it's so misleading - any type of dumpling normally served in broth could also be called soup dumplings. I don't think even in their translations that Din Tai Fung differentiates between xiaolongbao and the other dumplings they serve (four or five kinds besides internal variations).
Soup Dumpling? Wonton is more a soup dumpling...
At least shanghai style dumplings, oh forget it......
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Just as I call 'em french fries and not pommes frites, and just like I call fried rice fried rice and not like whatever the hell the Chinese name is, I think soup dumpling is now the standard accepted English translation for xlb.
I think certain simple-sounding words like sushi get imported whole into English, but I can't even vaguely remember how to spell, let alone say, xlb.
Besides, is it really that misleading? A pork dumpling isn't a dumpling served in a bed of pork, it's a dumpling filled with pork. So, by parity, a soup dumpling...
-thi
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And a soup dumpling isn't filled with soup. It's filled with some gelatinized concentrated broth properly called a glaze, a meat glaze, as well as pork or a pork-inclusive mixture of fleshes. The glaze dissolves with heat. so it should be a glaze dumpling.
And at most of the Huaiyang places I've been, it isn't listed on the menu as soup dumplings. I have seen Shanghai steamed dumplings, (but soup dumplings? only in New York). In fact, the only way for me to tell, unfortunately I guess, is to look at the Chinese menu or ask the waitstaff.
BTW a quick search on "Soup Dumplings" and xiao at the mainpage website shows that the term is hardly universal.
Also, on the SF board, I see XLB more often than not
http://tinyurl.com/4ye9s
Even Melanie Wong was confused by the soup dumpling term that seems to have been coined by the venerable NY establishment, Joe's Shanghai.
http://tinyurl.com/4qvrx
http://tinyurl.com/4zpx9
Anyway, if you like go ahead with the soup dumplings, rather than Shanghai steamed buns which I have seen locally. Call it J-town, not little tokyo. Call it Crack cocaine and a crack house, instead of rock cocaine or a rock house. And stand on line for a table at Din Tai Fung; I'll be there waiting in line at Ting T'ai...
Link: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/...
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What is Ting Tai?
-thi
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ting t'ai is wade-gilles for pinyin Ding Tai which are the first two characters, even though they drop the g for some reason.
Maybe because they're southern Chinese.
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My, my, I drop in here to see what's up with Din Tai Fung (yes, I have fond memories of the double-boiled soup in Taipei) and see my name taken in vain! I agree that soup dumpling is meaningless in SF because none of the restaurant menus list xiao long bao that way. I think soup dumpling is a NY thing, referring to xiao long TANG bao, such as served at Joe's, and different from what our own restaurants generally serve. So, they're two different animals.
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Not that it's at all important, but I think they're billed as "juicy dumplings" on the menu...in English, anyway, which is an apt description in any event. They are dumplings, and they are "juicy" in that there is liquid inside.
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You say toe_may_toe, I say toe_mah_toe...
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Thi-
Pomme Souffle not Pomme Frites, and pomme souffle are their own species of fried potato and not the same thing at all as as a french fry.
>=)
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And speaking of Pomme Souffle, Judi, do you know where they can be had in L.A., with or without an advance order? Chasen's used to have them but alas. They seem like something that Dal Rae would have but I haven't checked.
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No I do not. Wish I did.
I did have an interesting experience at Mariposa at Neiman Marcus the other day. I had an excellent rare burger ($14) that may have had hand chopped meat.
The fries were very light and souffle like inside. Very unusual.
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The pressure's been on me for a shopping trip there. I've been resisting but now I think I'll relent. Thanks.
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Picking a fight on semantics with a philosphy grad student -- bound to be a losing proposition.
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really David? And do you know what my doctorate is in?
Never underestimate anyone.
(Perhaps both our posts will be deleted - wait, I like restaurants in LA, how about you?)
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LOL, and me too.
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I love a great chicken soup--what is their address?
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In the amount of time it took to post here, you can find the address of Din Tai Fung at the link below. Search the name of the restaurant. This is a very handy site to save in your favorites as it has all the restaurants in LA County listed in it.
Link: http://www.lapublichealth.org/rating/...
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Does anyone know how their chicken soup is made? I've tried rendering chicken drumstick and adding ginger, scallions and deglazing with rice wine before adding water to boil for an hour......no success.
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I agree with you... it's my favorite soup also.
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