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When Din Tai Fung opened in New York City, online reservations disappeared soon after the website went live, according to The New York Times. Even in a city with plenty of places to get xiaolongbao (Shanghai-style soup dumplings), aficionados couldn’t wait to try Din Tai Fung’s. The chain has 182 restaurants worldwide and 16 in the U.S. Fortunately, there is one in Portland, and even more fortunately, Din Tai Fung likes to take chances on troubled malls like Pioneer Place. It opened in the basement there in September 2023, and since then it has drawn more traffic than even a free pants day at Zara would. Along with Muji, the Japanese department store, it is helping to revive a downtown in desperate need of reasons to visit.
I know what you’re thinking. WW is saying that a chain restaurant is a reason to love our city? Yes, we are. But Din Tai Fung is an unusual chain. It was founded in Taiwan in 1958 as a cooking oil business, and it’s still family owned. Most importantly, the dumplings are really good. So are its non-dumpling dishes, like the cucumber salad, which comes stacked like a Chinese temple with sliced fresno peppers and garlic, all drizzled in sesame oil. Din Tai Fung’s Hong Kong restaurant has won a star from the prestigious Michelin Guide five times. Few reviewers fail to mention that each dumpling weighs exactly 21 grams, or that they are folded exactly 18 times so they look like doughy ping-pong balls with swirled bouffant hairdos. The folds are pretty, but, according to Michelin, they also allow the soup, which starts as gelatin, to expand when steamed and suspend a ball of pork (traditional) or pork and crab (a departure) or chicken (downright nouveau). Every restaurant has a team of white-hatted, black-gloved chefs making them in what might as well be an Intel clean room with windows so you can admire their precision.
We’ve been to Din Tai Fung a few times. Once, we sat outside the restaurant at tables in the mall, surrounded by a short fence, like we were dining al fresco. I never thought dining on the bottom floor of Pioneer Place could be pleasant, but it was. It really was.