To quote Zoolander, XLBs or soup dumpings are “so hot right now“. If you follow restaurant trends in New York or London people are obsessed about them. And quite sensible they are too as, when done well, they are amazing parcels of pork led joy.
The ironic thing about this is that you can’t get good XLBs in New York or London (or actually anywhere outside of Shanghai, Taipei or cities which have a Din Tai Fung branch) for toffee.
I’ve mentioned Din Tai Fung before in my posts on Shanghai (here) as that is city where the XLB is historically from. However, it is Din Tai Fung, a chain which started in Taipei in Taiwan, that is now probably the most reckoned place to eat XLB in at its many branches around the world.
Mr Noodles has previously done a post (here and quite properly) begging them to come to London and the reason is simple; perfect, albeit expensive, XLBs.
Now if you are lucky enough to live in Shanghai or Taipei you will be able to go to restaurants which do them a squidgen better, in more authentic settings and for cheaper. But outside of that, they are hard to beat (though I have had some comparable ones from LKH, Man Wah and Crystal Jade).
The strange thing about all of this is Din Tai Fung shouldn’t be good. It is a chain, a pretty big one. They still rely on a quote from the New York Times in 1993 (seriously) which rated it as one of the top 10 restaurants in the world. Their dinning rooms are big clattering places. However, despite all of this the food can be really good.
We generally drift there for a quick brunch on a Saturday and go crazy with ordering XLBs. The crab ones can, when good, be pretty sensational. The vegetable ones can also be interesting. The rest of the dishes are well above average.
Some people can take issue with the prices as for the price of one XLB from Din Tai Fung in Hong Kong you could buy eight in Shanghai/ Taipei but that really isn’t the point. You aren’t in Shanghai/ Taipei. The point of Din Tai Fung is good, repeatable XLBs in a clean and unthreatening environment and it does it well. Oh and you can smile at the thought that New York and London doesn’t have one.
- Price – HK$300 for a selection of XLBs a head
- G/F, 68 Yee Woo Street , Causeway Bay, Hong Kong (3160 8998)
PS Even the crab ones have pork in them which is worth knowing if you unsuspectingly take a Jewish friend to eat them like I did…
