Din Tai Fung Sydney Review ~ Taiwanese - World Square \ Chinatown

And some after dinner sweeties at Mirchi Indian downstairs…

Just got home after eating at Din Tai Fung Sydney in World Square. I'm trying to think of something clever to write about it when I really just want to say "oh my god that place was freakin' sensational."

We shared a table with three other couples. We normally dislike sharing tables but here it is fun. Our table was large and round so there was plenty of room, personal space galore. We were tempted to spin the giant ‘lazy susan’ in the middle and sample the other couple's dishes, but we are (allegedly) grown-ups now.

We came to try the "world's tastiest dumplings" however our table-mates had such exotic looking dishes we opted for something completely different...

...such as this amazing silken tofu with pork floss and century egg. The tofu was chilled, the egg was intense and the pork-floss salty-sweet. So strange yet it works.

Drunken chicken, served cold, eaten sober. It looked and tasted like smoked chicken, drowning in Chinese cooking wine, what a way to go. It was cut with one layer across the top, and another lying the other way underneath, very chopstick friendly.

Token vegetables. Hot pickled cabbage and bamboo shoot with pieces of lightly cooked pork.

Noodles with dumplings. These were spicy pork wontons in a little broth to keep it all moist and flavoursome. I thought the noodles had a ramen like toothsomeness to them, they weren’t like hand made noodles.

Noodles with pork mince, love the fresh soya beans. There were also tiny cubes of tofu tucked away as well, and the pork mince had a touch of spice to it, like star anise or cassia, (perhaps five spice?).

Funky. Buzzy. Uber efficient and smiley service. Packed with hungry Chinese\Taiwanese punters. The place runs like a well oiled machine. You mark your choices on a menu and the waitress (with tiny earpiece to make sure it all runs smoothly) brings out the goodies to you. Our waitresses was called Pinko and Coco.

Uber efficient. Hygene-o-matic. Food-o-licious. Any staff who prepared food wore a face mask. This is the perfect restaurant for germ-o-phobes. You can stand outside and watch the precision dumpling making teams in action through big glass windows. It must be torture if you're hungry and waiting in the queue

Get in early or get in the queue, we were lucky\early enough to walk straight in, there was a good thirty people waiting when we left half an hour later..

On the way out we notice that Mirchi Indian, a standard Indian bainmarie joint, has a nifty selection of Indian sweets.

How could one resist?

This is called a 'cutlet'.

It is sensational, lovely sticky, gooey semolina.

The kheer mohan is great, but the cutlet wins the prize.

A besan burfi, a testament to the glory of condensed milk. Burfi always tastes like soap when I first take a bite, a few chews later it tastes great. Weird.

Din Tai Fung Sydney is at level 1 World Square Shopping Centre, 644 George Street Sydney. Mirchi Indian is downstairs.