Din Tai Fung Paragon

Ever since I heard that there was a Din Tai Fung in the US, it’s become a minor obsession with me to try the place out. Din Tai Fung is a Taiwanese chain that is known for the quality of their dumplings, especially with their xiaolongbao, which I really REALLY like! The problem is that there’s only one location in the entire US (Arcadia, CA) and the queues each day/night approach ridiculous. That means a really long wait. I’ve been told that none of the other locations match up to the original Taipei location, which means I’ve gotta try it when I’m out there…
But wait a minute! I’m in Singapore! There are FOUR locations here. That means that the chances are four times greater I’ll actually get to try this place out! Waaaaah! So I dragged out a fellow backpacker from Inn Crowd (the hostel of choice in Singapore) to Paragon to eat lunch.

The chefs at work, making sure each dumpling has the proper amount of folds in them
Din Tai Fung is in the basement food court area (along with HSBC and Citibank ATMs). The wait was, like, three minutes. Seated and ordered in ten. We got here around 1300 so we just missed the lunch crunch. You gotta begin with an order of xiaolongbao. In fellow backpacker’s words, “if they can’t get the basics right, forget about the rest of the menu!” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Did they get it right?

Quick, count the folds!
Yup, they got it right. The skins were just the right thickness and the soup inside was at just the right temperature. There were even instructions on how to eat these with vinegar and bamboo shoots ginger provided. How thoughtful!

Fellow backpacker had some kind of noodle soup with a light broth and tofu. Good!

I had the braised beef noodle soup. That’s fellow backpacker’s spoon
The braised beef noodle soup was more of a cold weather dish. It felt kind of heavy in the Singapore heat. Both soup dishes were very good. The noodles were firm, not soggy and cooked just right. The beef was more on the lean side than the fatty but the broth made up for that. It was good! Will go back again!

fellow backpacker taking pix of her food for her blog
Din Tai Fung
290 Orchard Road, B1-03/06
Paragon Shopping Centre
Singapore 238859
6836 8336