In Dumpling Heaven at Din Tai Fung, Taipei

Din Tai Fung is renowned as the world’s best chain of restaurants specialising in soup dumplings. So when Taipei locals Robin (who I met in Kyoto) and Joey led me to the basement of the huge SOGO building and to the door of Din Tai Fung, I was pretty damn excited. The wait time was one hour, but I would have gladly waited two just to taste those delicious pork and vegetable xiaolongbao (soup dumplings).

We were getting along so famously that our one hour wait felt as little as ten minutes. We were then whisked away to our table, and our mouth-watering dishes began to arrive. Everything was DELICIOUS! We shared the whole lot and split the meal three ways, bringing the cost to $405TWD each ($14 AUD) which is, admittedly, a bit steep for Taiwan, especially when you can get dumplings from a little old lady on the street for next to nothing. But as an Australian, this seems a totally reasonable price, and is still far less than what I would pay for a nice restaurant meal back home. Thank you so much Robin and Joey for putting your study on hold to take me to a great dinner out!