This post was written in 2005. Shop details and prices may have changed since then.
It rained all day, so I left my camera at home, and yet somehow I ended up traveling, eating well
and making music too. Life is one long run of music, food and travel anyway, so maybe that was only natural.
It’s a bit of a shame I have no record of any of it, but maybe a completely unpredictable life is exactly
what I wanted. (Still, I do wish I had a camera that was easy to carry around.
Honestly, even the Rollei 35 isn’t that easy to carry. T_T)
I think the first time I went to the Din Tai Fung in Shinjuku was on Mr. Y’s recommendation.. or was it Mr. G..
My first impression was: the fried rice is so-so, the noodles are weak, but the xiaolongbao and shumai are really good,
and years later that verdict hasn’t changed. It’s not that they can’t do noodles or fried rice at all, but compared with
what you’d get at a specialist, they’re a notch below. A dumpling house only needs to make good dumplings, and I don’t see
any reason to expect more than that, so I don’t really hold it against Din Tai Fung..
Just a few years ago there were only the Shinjuku and Nagoya stores, but with its good reputation and growing fame, branches
are now starting to pop up all over the place. The ones I’ve been to are in Shiodome and
Tachikawa. Shiodome sits right across from Odaiba, a newly developed sub-center much like the Marunouchi Building in front of Tokyo Station,
so they do a fair bit of media promotion. But for all the press it gets, the food is a lot worse.
There’s no comparison with the main store, and the shumai even had a fishy taste, so that says it all.. With any restaurant,
judging it after one visit is risky.. but going back a second time to a place that let you down is just as foolish..
so I won’t be going back. The second branch I tried is in the Takashimaya department store in Tachikawa, on the west side of Tokyo.
The xiaolongbao were decent, the shumai decent too, and they seemed to be trying hard to get close to the main store’s flavor. I
enjoyed it quite a bit. I didn’t like that the soup inside the xiaolongbao was only lukewarm.. but I figured they probably
made it lukewarm on purpose to suit Japanese tastes, so I just put up with it. Still, for a place that’s not central Tokyo but
way out in Tachikawa, having a restaurant this good is something.. The fried rice there, though, was practically
the taste of death. It felt like a real waste of money.. While the main store’s fried rice is at least edible,
the branch seemed to be struggling just to keep the shumai up to standard. On the other hand, their shumai and red bean buns are
far better than most places, so if you stick to the dumplings you’ll probably be very happy.
I don’t think I’ll ever go to a Din Tai Fung branch in Korea, but if I somehow end up there, I definitely
won’t order the fried rice or the noodles. Just passing on the know-how for making xiaolongbao must keep them busy enough,
so controlling the quality of everything else must be really hard..
Actually, I’d originally meant to go to the yoshoku place next door, not Din Tai Fung. When I went to Rengatei in Ginza a while ago, the staff
were in maid outfits.. -_-;; I came away having learned the truth that there’s a reason a place has stayed in business right in the middle of Ginza
for over 100 years, but lately, for some reason, quite a few Japanese yoshoku places seem to have staff in short-skirted maid outfits
serving the tables… Hmm.. As for the yoshoku place in Takashimaya.. I didn’t make it this time, but
I’ll give it a try next time I get the chance.
Since I hadn’t had any proper noodles at Din Tai Fung, I went to Dotonbori Kamukura Ramen in Shinjuku. Even the most basic
ramen with no toppings is tasty, but they give you so much soup that it’s too much on its own.. so ordering
two or three toppings is a good idea. Chashu, green onion, bean sprouts, egg – whichever you pick goes well. The free chive kimchi on the table is good too..
But I’ll confess it now: their ramen really is delicious, yet I know a place that serves even better noodles.
So I recommend this shop to other people, but I hardly ever go there myself.. -_-;;
And where is that place? A Chinese restaurant in front of my office. They serve noodles topped with sliced dongpo pork, and it has a clean taste
a step above ordinary ramen. The noodles are a little weak, but the broth is simply sublime. There’s no grease floating on top
to turn your stomach, and the aftertaste is clean. The thing is, my office is in Makuhari.. I can’t exactly tell people
to ride an hour from Tokyo to Makuhari for one bowl of noodles.. sigh.. On top of that, the flavor there tends to go up and down
from day to day, so it’s hard to recommend even to friends who stop by Makuhari now and then. Even so, being able
to have sublime noodles every now and then is a real joy.. Most famous ramen shops can’t hold a candle to it.
Truth be told, I think the gomtang at Hadongkwan is tastier than Japanese ramen made from pork or chicken bones.. but Hadongkwan
is way too far from here.. T_T Next time I go to Korea I absolutely, absolutely have to go back.. There can’t be many places
with as much cheap, delicious food as Korea..