Londoners wait 4 hours for newly opened Din Tai Fung

I like Ting Tai Fung but not enough for me to wait more than 15-20min at most.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-08/the-wait-for-world-famous-dumplings-in-london-is-four-hours

There’s undoubtedly better Chinese food in London than the overrated Din Tai Fung. And of course there’s tons better choices all over Taiwan where it’s from. It’s okay, but I have one near me and I barely go to it. There’s better xiao long bao right next door to me that’s half the price. Basically, DTF is an okay place that doesn’t come close to matching all the hype it gets. Waiting 4 hours to eat at DTF is a real “basic bitch” move.

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Also I found not all DTF is the same quality. Some branches taste not like the original branches at all. I heard the one in Milan is awful.

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Compounding the stupidity of waiting for four hours is if you go during off-hours the wait is only a few minutes. From the linked article:

There are queues of up to four hours for Din Tai Fung, a no-reservations Taiwan dumpling chain that opened this week in Covent Garden. I went at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday and waited only a few minutes

Yeah, it’s definitely inconsistent. I’ve had some bad DTF experiences. How’s the one in Malaysia?

It’s definitely consistent with the ones in Taiwan. I think it’s because they can get the same materials. In Europe they probably have a hard time.

Europe’s first DTF is in London


Esp. if workers aren’t familiar with the tastes, textures, smells, and ingredients. Apparently, there is a secret sauce to the recipes there. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there is variation in the output. A lot of restaurant workers probably never tried that kind of food
 so they’re just copying the recipe. Recipes can be kind of basic, even commercial ones.

A friend in told me that the when Ding Tai Fung opened in San Diego you had to make reservations to get in. Took him a month to finally get in


Milan doesn’t have any DTF, unless you mean Malaysia.

I went to this London one a few months ago (like 3 days after its opening). I only queued for 1 - 1.5hr. The food tasted the same but the portion was significantly smaller (the noodles and fried rice) and the prices were outrageous - 13.5 pounds for the fried rice which was half the size of what you’d get in Taiwan (or at any other branch, I’d say).

Btw for some idiotic reason DTF invited Boris Johnson to their opening and he made a couple of dumplings. I guess the idiots working at DTF didn’t know that every Brit hates his guts.