As you can see, this is Din Tai Fung. An uber famous restaurant which is mainly known for their steamed soup dumplings. It actually started as a shop to sell cooking oil, and after decades of doing that it started selling the dumplings on the side, and eventually that became so popular it was the only thing they sold. It's one shop was so popular you had to wait hours to get the food. Over the years it spread to more locations around the city and even the world.
Even with all this expansion, it has still managed to stay extremely popular. It's considered the best place in the country to get steamed soup dumplings. So much so that if people want them, they only go to this one place to get them. Much to the detriment of other places, as I feel I've had much better ones elsewhere, but those places can't stay open long under the weight of Din Tai Fung.
I still lament the lose of my favorite steamed soup dumpling place that was a tiny hole in the wall shop. I don't think many people even ate there as in their mind if Din Tai Fung is the best, than why try anything else? To which I always wonder how can you know if something is the best if you have never tried it anywhere else.
If you are in LA or Seattle you can give it a try for yourself. I'm sure it's expensive there as they are probably trying to portray it as some delicacy rather than it being a street snack. Fair warning, it's also not very good. But don't worry if you don't like it or even do like it, there is much better where that came from in Taiwan. Provided those other shops haven't gone out of business by the time you get over here.
