Korean Traditional Restaurant - Shanghai, China

I’ve eaten here during every layover since 2005, and I never thought to write a review. 

The important thing is, I’ve eaten here on my way home every single time. Whether it’s en route to Dalian or back to my tiny Torrance apartment, Korean Traditional Restaurant has always borne witness to this transition. 

It’s a refreshing break from the weeks of Chinese food and is a welcome change from calorie-dense American. The Cold Noodles are refreshing and light in a sweet-finishing broth, and I love the al dente, part-gelatinous, part-ropy texture of starch-loaded buckwheat.

Stack the starches with a savory Kimchee Pancake. Theirs is mildly crispy on the outside and soft with a touch of brine beneath. It has a stealthy kick of spice as well.

The Bibimbap is another classic, and they do it right with a stone pot that keeps it hot long after the sizzling stops. The rice gets crispy and dry and it’s a delightful mix of the food groups.

It’s not important to me. If this restaurant ever closed I would just sit at whatever took its place or a seek something more appetizing within the airport limits. The international terminal in Shanghai/Pudong isn’t much to write home about, but its significance can’t be overlooked much longer. It’s served as a step between me and home for so many years, and I rarely have Korean food without thinking of this tradition. 

Din Tai Fung - Torrance

I've eaten in 4 DTF's, in two different countries and I still don't get it. The Hong Kong original must have really rocked somebody's world because I'm still not that impressed. 

Look, I get it. I like the classic Pork XLB a lot, and I can appreciate a textbook thin, chewy wrapper and a savory well-balanced broth, but I still have to go to southern China to blow my mind. I'm not hater - I really do think they're great, but they're just not the dumpling holy grail that everyone makes them out to be. 

And aside from the main-attraction XLB, everything else is just okay. The Shrimp and Pork Wontons have a dense, meaty center, and the wonton wrappers wave their wings as they bask in a rather bland broth,

I do appreciate the Shrimp and Pork Shumai more this time around - last time someone forgot to add the salt. 

Just be sure to avoid the Pork and Sticky Rice Shumai. The rice is mushy and overcooked, and you can't even detect the pork.

Every time someone asks my opinion on DTF, I get THE GLARE. I blaspheme when I give a less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of everyone's dumpling icon, and there's this look of utter confusion that follows, as if I said the sky was no longer blue. I'm increasingly tempted to lie, when the looks of innocence shattered begin to appear, but if you're asking my honest opinion; I like DTF a lot, but I just can't love it all that much.

Dally at Din Tai Fung UPDATE – Arcadia

If you think about it, Chinese people are actually pretty accepting. Sure, my people make rigid rules for their children and are dogmatic disciplinarians, but about anything goes in just about every other aspect of life. When it comes to clothing, there are no patterns too gaudy, no colors too clashing, and no style too bold to try. And when it comes to food, there are no ingredients too exotic, no combinations too confusing, and no flavors that can fail, just to name a few.

But the one thing the Chinese don't accept is mediocrity of any kind. You go big or you go home, and if you didn’t go big, you really don’t want to go home to the raging eyes of an angry tiger mom. And in a county of 6 billion people, the competition is pretty fierce.

There may not be billions of Chinese people in the SGV, but when it comes to authentic Chinese cuisine, the bar is set sky high, and I don’t understand how Din Tai Fung has managed to survive. My initial experience there was ordinary at best, but everyone insisted that I hadn’t had an authentic Din Tai Fung experience. The Pork Dumplings are their best dish, and since I’d only tried the pork and crab dumplings, I was clearly an unfit judge.

They had a point so I gave it another go. I ordered the pork dumplings steaming hot, and I sipped the savory soup with unparalleled enthusiasm and hope. The soup was tasty, the soft meat filling was satisfying to my inner fatty, and the thin, slightly chewy wrapper made for a tight little package. The dumplings were well-made, and they were definitely pretty good, but they were standard southern Chinese at best. Enjoyable, but they didn’t exactly change my life.

Din Tai Fung may not be making any life-changing liquids, but their Milk Tea with Boba was still a pleasant sip. It was nice to wash down all that hot soup with something icy and cold.

The Pork and Rice Shumai were a lot better than the pork and shrimp. The chewy chunks of pork nestled in a pearly ball of sticky rice were palatably exciting,  but these became a little bit bland. Maybe a little more pork to liven up the ratio?

I had tried to chalk up my initial lack of enthusiasm to my recent return from China, but I’ve been back for a while now, and it’ll be a long while before I’m back to Din Tai Fung. The dumplings weren’t bad by any means, but good isn’t good enough when you’re in the valley of the Asians. Come on SGV, even an A- isn’t enough if you’re Asian, and you’re getting a solid B. How about you try to disappoint your tiger mom a little less next time?

Dallying at Din Tai Fung – Arcadia

Some say that food is the gateway to the soul. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it’s been proven that smell is associated with memory, so it’s not much of a reach to say that food could surface some sentiments as well.

I am a lot of things, but to say I’m sentimental would be wildly inaccurate. But I did get back from China not too long ago, and I’m still being plagued by the occasional wave of homesickness so I was pretty reluctant to write about Din Tai Fung for a while. Plus feelings scare me, and food-feelings sound just plain terrifying.

The stinging seafood that permeates the Juicy Pork and Crab Dumplings bore a pretty terrifying resemblance to the seafood smell that permeates the Dalian air of my father’s seacoast city. Unfortunately, the balance of land and sea is way off in these too-crabby pockets of pork, and while my gorgeous city can pull it off, these dumplings don’t even come close.

Those dumplings brought a nice feeling of nostalgia, but all I felt for the Shrimp and Pork Shao Mai was disappointment. I had never had a shao mai with soup inside, but once the novelty of the concept wore off, I found the generic pork filling about as memorable as the changing of seasons in SoCal. To top it off,   the unsalted shrimp on top was even drier than the California climate.

When I was finally done with the unsatifying shao mai, I was pretty disillusioned with all things pork. Fortunately, the Pork Bun was a perfectly tender, perfectly flavored ball of pork ensconced in a fluffy wrap and definitely didn’t disappoint.

I was still glowing from the home and hearth feeling that only comfort food can conjure, but the best was yet to come. The chili sauce of the simple, al dente Spicy Noodle brought on pure elation, but it’s a pretty sad day when the noodles are your favorite dish at a famous dumpling house.

People rave about Din Tai Fung, and I’ve heard the stories from far and wide. But I guess there’s a reason legends are only loosely based on fact because the only emotions I got from eating here were sad. Maybe I ordered all the wrong things, maybe they were busy, or maybe they were off. Honestly, I could speculate all day, but let’s just say that on that day, I wasn’t feeling Din Tai Fung.

China - Song of the South

Southern China is no stranger to fame. The accomplishments of the Song dynasty are pretty unforgettable, the terra cotta army is a lasting impression ten thousand times over, and Shanghai could almost be the center of the universe. But the real southern empire lives in the kitchen. Whether it's the homemade hybrid of northern dumplings and wonton soup (Southern Dumplings), the numbing spiciness of mala, or an iconic shot of sweetness that accompanies this Lotus Root, the south houses many a master chef. This particular bowl holds the best dumpling soup I've ever had.

Southern dumpling soup may be new to me, but Shanghai dumplings have always been a fave. I knew there were soup dumplings and soup shumai, but I had no idea there were Soup Bao as well. The crispy, fried skin, which is similar to a steamed bun and as thick as a pork bao, encases a full spoon of soup.

There are the classic soup dumplings, aka mini juicy dumplings, that almost everyone has tried, and then there is the real Pork and Crab Soup Dumpling. Seafood soup simmers inside a dumpling the size of a large man's fist. There's no way to hold this monstrosity over a spoon so the soup needs to be sucked out with a straw before you can slurp down the rest.

Geographically, my family stronghold lies in the north. I love my northern noshing, my speech is pure Liaoning mandarin, and my papercuts bleed bright red DongBei blood. But when it comes to dumplings and soup, I'm all for the southern Song.