On the 16th of May 2008, one of Taiwan's most famous steam dumpling (小籠包) restaurant "
Din Tai Fung 鼎泰豐" has opened its very first branch in Australia!!
It is located at level 2 of World Square, not hard to locate because there is a HUGE sign near the stairways at the centre of World Square, which is very obvious.
Even though we visited the restaurant 1 month after opening, there are still full of people queuing for the seat, now you can see how popular this restaurant is. Maybe the queue is not as bad during week nights?
The main kitchen is located next to the entrance, fitted with see-through glasses so people can look at chefs making those delicious dumplings while waiting... this is such a torture!! This is actually a beneficial design for the restaurant because they let the public to monitor the quality.
Sorry I didnt take any photos of the food because we were all starving that as soon as the foods arrive we wipe them all out ^^"
Overall, the foods are nice, pretty much the same quality as in Taiwan. Most of the dishes were freshly made upon order, especially the steam dumpling, because the restaurant is so crowded, you can almost guarantee that they only START making the dumplings that are delivered to your table, hence the dumplings are extra juicy~~
The portion of the dishes at Din Tai Fung are quite small, they are more quality oriented rather than quantity, so relatively the price is higher than average restaurants. At the end of the day we paid nearly $30 each but the amount of food were only barely enough (maybe because I am a pig?).
Finally, one thing I have to comment on is the way they manage customers who made booking beforehand. We actually reserved a table at 7:30PM 1 week prior to the date, but we end up getting a seat at close to 8:30PM!!! The way they treat bookings were like they put you on to the queue list on the time you booked, that is absolutely no difference from just show up on the spot and queue in the line... the excuse they gave us was everyone made booking so they have to arrange the table too... Maybe they don't really care if you don't want to wait since they have plenty of customers, but if they allow booking, they should have done it properly, otherwise I think it would be better for their reputation if they stop allowing customers to make bookings.
There were about 3000 people queuing outside the store on the opening day, the rain obviously couldnt stop their passion about Apple. There were limited Apple t-shirt for the first bunch of customers, and Apple umbrella for people queuing in the rain, how nice is it!! I want an Apple umbrella too!!
It is a three-story store with very future looking design
First floor is MacBook section
Second floor is the iPod section
Third floor is the Apple training centre
Even the stair-way are specially designed
