鼎泰豐 信義店 (大安區)

https://www.umakemehungry.com/2018/08/din-tai-fung.html

Yes we have many Din Tai Fung outlets in Singapore and just never get bored of it even overseas, especially visiting in her "home" country. Trying out Din Tai Fung in its original location is one of the Must Do in our itineraries.

Even under the scotching hot weather, we are surprised to see so many die hard fans waited for their turn to dine in the restaurant given the queue is at least minimum wait of half an hour.

Once you pass the entrance on the 1st floor, you will get to see the kitchen through the glass panels on the right. You can see that each one of them are so studious, working no-stop from rolling, stuffing in preparation of the food.

Communication among the servers is a breeze with the use of Walkie Talkie. We were ushered into the restaurant then was told to go up to upper levels without escorting.

Very well communicated and team work among the staff is observed. As soon as we entered the upper level, we were showed to our designated seating.

We agreed on sharing the table (which isn't a practice in Singapore's Din Tai Fung) so to speed up the queuing time. We were given a table tagging with a card stand to identify ourselves and the orders. Over the years, we all knew that the customer service in Taiwan is great and cannot be compared to what we have back home.

Accustoming themselves to the current business world, I'm amazed by how these servers start serving tourists in different parts of the world, each with at least a knowledge of Foreign language. They are real eloquent in Korean, Japanese, English beside the common daily use of their Mother Tongue, Mandarin.

Out of so many plates of fried rice that I have eaten, I still think that DTF's one is the best.I love that the fact that every grain of the rice is evenly coated with the egg not to mention the satisfaction we have on our face once the spoonful of rice went into our mouth. You just wont go wrong ordering their fried rice even the plain version.

The condiments is different from Singapore when comes to pairing them with the popular Xiao Long Baos. Vinegar comes in the yellow orange color and the friendly servers recommend to pour one part of soy sauce to three parts of vinegar.

Followed the instruction and place them into our small plate of ginger strips.

Having the World's most popular Xiao Long Bao as a signature, it would be a regret if you did not give them a try. Its paper thin wrap cradling the juicy pork fillings was sealed with a pleat done up by exactly 18 folds.

200 $ NT for 10 Pieces Surrounding the juicy pork fillings, you will get the flavourful broth once you bite down the Xiao Long Bao. Do be careful of the piping hot flavours that may burst out. Comparing this to what we have back home, frankly, their standard are better, tastier and more succulent.

We did not overly order as compared to neighboring table. They ordered 3 different kinds of Xiao Long Bao with pork, shrimp and chicken fillings.

Notice that we do not have this side dish in the Singapore's menu. Pork ribs were well coated in both sweetness and sourness by the vinegar.

 This is one of my favourite orders in DTF. I'm not sure if its psychology but it seems that their soup here taste better too. Clear and tasty pack full of natural sweetness from the chicken.

Last but not least, we ended our meal with the sweet treat. A cooling dessert to beat the heat. Dessert was chilled, soothing to throat with ingredients such as Gingko Nut, Longan and white Fungus.

If you want to grab some souvenirs back home, you can have a look at their merchandise near the cashier counter. There are magnets, key chains, pens, towel, paper clips etc.

If you tried Din Tai Fung in other parts of world, you may want to head down to this original shop of theirs and get a great experience of their food and service.

阜杭豆漿 (中正區)

Skipping Yong He Dou Jiang which we already have in Singapore, Fu Hang Dou Jiang is one of the popular breakfast spots in Taipei that you may want to add to your itinerary. Well liked by the tourists and local, it is not surprising that one may have to queue for hours just to get their breakfast.

As long as we hurried to the place after alighting from their metro we were quite skeptical of the long queue that comes out all the way from the building's 2nd level to their ground floor and to its perimeters. There I began to worry about the time needed to queue for the weather is so hot in August even during the morning time.

Not long after, we went up into the food court following the queue. Everything was swift, including the ordering portion.

While lining up , we get to see the operations in the kitchen.

 Everyone in the kitchen was just too involved in their delegated duties.

This is something interesting to me. The staff is trying to reach the breads in his oven with a pair of long metal thongs.

The catch here is that you have to make up your mind quick when ordering the items because you can only rejoin the queue later on if you want to add on. That's a lot of time taken!

It was said that the local would prefer the Salty Soya Bean Milk to the original. I'm too use to the original taste and not quite comfortable in having the salty version. However, I will still give it a try as such Soya Bean Milk is rare back home.

The good thing I notice about Taiwanese Soya Bean is the smoothness in their milk drink without being too thick. The thickness is just at its right amount.

 Besides the bowl of Soya Bean Milk, the fried dough stick was something commendable. It was fragrant, light and fluffy. The crispy skin on the stick was an addiction. Furthermore, though these are fried items, they are not too greasy.

 Last but not least, a decent try of they egg crepe. Soft, naturally sweet with the eggs and scallion.

It was quite lucky that we had queued less than 30 minutes, there were many tourists, Japanese and Koreans made up a majority.

Though the WOW Factor is not very big on their food, I would say after trying their Soya Bean Milk and dough sticks, what we have at home in Singapore cannot be compared over here. How I wish we have such wonderful items back home, of course that includes the pocket friendly pricing and tasty food.