The Bizarre Truth (22 page)

In high school, my friends and I would often head to Chinatown on weekends in pursuit of great dim sum. Clark, Toby, Eric, Aaron, and I hit the subway, most times venturing to Num Wah. For generations, this was the “under-the-radar” place for enjoying dim sum on weekend mornings.
Shao-mai
dumplings,
char siu bao
(barbecued pork buns), and crispy shrimp wrapped in rice noodles, then deep-fried so they looked like they were dunked in futuristic spiderwebs were always on the table. Paper-thin sheets of bean curd, wrapped around vegetables and braised pork, chicken feet simmered in black bean sauce, teeny sparerib nuggets just
about a half-inch wide, with a bit of meat clinging to them, bathed in ginger and garlic. Sticky fried rice, loaded with Chinese sausage, roast pork, and beaten egg, stuffed inside a lotus leaf and then baked again. This was a hungry, teenage boy’s heaven, and we regularly gorged ourselves. We’d follow it up with nickel pinball games at the Chinese arcade down the street. We always ended our sojourn with a stop at the Dancing Chicken. This oddity was a large chicken-wire-wrapped box sitting on a table. Insert a coin, and a small door opened in the back of the box and out would come a rooster. He danced around for a few seconds, then raced back into the door. It was hilarious. We’d bum around downtown, sometimes grabbing another meal, then climb back on the subway to make curfew. That was a great day for us, and not an unusual one. So if that’s how I was as a child and a teenager, you can understand how my passion for dumplings grew with time.

It took a trip to Taiwan to find what may have been the ultimate dumpling experience. Interestingly, I tried with all my might to avoid this particular dumpling house. I’m the kind of guy who likes to go to the last stop on the subway. I don’t want to go to the obvious place that every guidebook recommends. I like the challenge of discovering that obscure, hole-in-the-wall joint. It’s usually these sorts of hidden gems where I find the best food, but often the most obvious answer is the right answer, and so it was when I finally got to Taiwan.

While we filmed in Taipei, a nice crew dinner was in the works. We had a local producer, Josh, who expertly guided us though the show. He’s a wacky genius, very creative—a geeky filmmaker with a great eye for both story and shot detail. He led us to some great locations, already knowing the best shots and setups to take advantage of. He was just fantastic to work with, as was his crew, composed of three dynamite PAs. Apparently, these guys met while practicing kung fu in the local gym there. Some of these guys were national-caliber champions, with others still climbing the ranks—an authentic group of big, bad-ass motherfuckers. These guys are
all big eaters, and on the night I suggested we have dinner together after work, they all wanted to head to Din Tai Fung.

Din Tai Fung? I couldn’t have been more disappointed. The
New York Times
called it one of the ten best restaurants in the world twenty years ago. It’s a dumpling house turned chain restaurant, with three or four now in Taipei, even locations as far away as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles. The idea of the place struck me as a soulless choice, like a Ruth’s Chris steakhouse—decent food, I suppose, but surely there had to be something better in town. I didn’t want to eat there. I was convinced it was way too commercialized. I wanted to go to the sleepy, out-of-the-way place where all Taipei’s foodies gathered in hushed tones to eat dumplings.

We piled out of a few taxis and walked toward the giant, glowing red sign outside Din Tai Fung. A steady stream of customers flowed in and out on this weekday night. Taipei is a city of restaurants, most of which do a nice trade, but find the one that’s packed all the time and you’ll know you’ve found a winner. Din Tai Fung was packed. I sat outside as we waited twenty minutes for a table. I had a very visceral reaction waiting for dinner, with my stomach in knots, my mouth salivating uncontrollably. I had started the evening not wanting to go to Din Tai Fung, and then standing outside in the drizzling rain waiting for a table, smelling the restaurant every time the door opened, seeing the faces of the guests as they left—well, my viewpoint did a slick 180. The anticipation just killed me, but I was trying to keep my expectations low. I repeated mantras in my head to stay calm, otherwise whatever I ate would inevitably fall short of living up to my expectations. My serenity level is directly tied to my level of expectations, and I didn’t want to swing and sway too violently in the opposite direction of my earlier disdain for my companions’ choice of eatery.

Our table was finally ready. I walked in the door and the humidity level was electrifying. The kitchen was a glassed-in gigantic space of a room divided in half. A glassed-in refrigerated room for dumpling making on one side, a glassed-in steaming room on
the other. More than a dozen cooks, outfitted with aprons looped around their necks, neat hats on their heads, rolled dumplings like a synchronized swim team of the highest caliber. They stuffed these doughy little skins, packing them into well-seasoned racks, some lined with cabbage, some not, some lined with banana leaves, some not. They created different shapes of fish dumplings,
shao-mai
, which have a delicate little empire waist, pushed up and open-faced at the top. Closed soup dumplings, half-mooned fish dumplings, crab roe dumplings, chicken dumplings, green vegetable dumplings, pickled vegetable dumplings … I’d really never seen anything like it. In the room with the built-in steamers, chefs rotated orders. Dumpling racks were stacked along the wall. A cook would assemble your entire order, rack of this dumpling, rack of that, and then stack them up and steam your order all by itself in its own glorious edible tower. Your entire dumpling and steamed-foods selection would arrive at once, which I happen to love.

When our waitress came to take our order, I simply said, “Bring us one of everything you have.” I think they offered a dozen types of dumplings, plus appetizers, soups, and more, but the dumpling offerings totaled only about twelve different types. She looked at me like I was crazy. I realized that was a lot of food, but there were nine people in our group, with a few of us hungry souls who I knew could really pack it in. She called over her girlfriends, all speaking Chinese, pointing and giggling at me. I asked our Taiwanese crew to please explain to her that I was as serious as a heart attack. I’m on the other side of the world and I want to try everything on the menu. So, finally, after much negotiating, we placed our order.

We ended up putting a pretty good dent in the food, which admittedly made me feel pretty smug. On the other hand, I’ve felt terrible about it ever since, because I must have come across as such a piggish snob. Through our interpreter, I made sure to let them know I had traveled a long distance to be there and I wanted to try one of everything. I promised that if we didn’t eat everything we’d make sure the food didn’t go to waste.

The meal began with small bowls of boiled peanuts, and shredded spicy cabbage pickled with hot toasted dried chilies. We made quick work of those. I love meals like this when you actually get the traditional nibbles germane to a food’s region. These little treats get the taste buds going. Next came steamed chicken soup as well as some braised beef noodle soup. Then came the noodles, one mixed with pickled mustard greens in a very light sauce, and another in a thick sesame-and-peanut-paste sauce—extremely spicy and redolent of chilies and ginger and sesame oil. After we demolished those, out came the dumplings, stacked to the ceiling.

Now, the dumplings there are very, very unique. The most popular dumplings in the place are also the most widely imitated. They are called Xia Long Bao, which literally means “small basket buns.” These are delicate little nuggets of minced pork encased in very thin dough that is a cross between a pasta sheet and a bread dough. If the dough is too thick, they become bready and awkward to eat; too thin and they fall apart. The Xia Long Bao is the quintessential Shanghai-style snack, supposedly invented in a little town called Nanxiang, which is now essentially a first-tier suburb of Shanghai. I have never had a better Xia Long Bao than the ones at Din Tai Fung.

Perfection requires a lot of attention to detail. The refrigerated room is necessary because there is so much liquid in Din Tai Fung’s dumpling mixture. Their dumplings are often referred to as soup dumplings because of the explosive rush of liquid hidden inside. When making many of these types of dumplings, the stuffing mixture needs to be cold and gelatinous, almost solid really, to construct the perfect dumpling. If the filling is kept well chilled, it’s easier for the chefs working with it. But when steamed, the Xia Long Bao literally burst with soupy goodness. You can get a horrible case of burnt pizza mouth on these things if you’re not careful. The key is waiting just long enough for them to cool slightly, but not so long that you can’t chew them well. Unlike certain types of pot stickers, which you can nick with your chopsticks so they
can soak up some dipping sauce, soup dumplings need to be eaten whole. And speaking of sauce, DTF offered the typical ginger-infused black vinegar or ginger-and-chili-infused vinegar; sometimes I take a little bit of soy drizzled in—but the sauce at this joint was drinkable, it was so good. The broth used in the making of dumplings here is one of the best-kept secrets in the food biz, but a surprise visit to the kitchen gained me a peek into their soup pot loaded with pig’s trotters and shrimp shells. The gelatin in the pork allows the stock to chill to a solid form, and the pork/shrimp combo is what makes the soup so addictive in its hot liquid form.

This was the ultimate dumpling feast. Steamed pork dumplings, traditional Xia Long Bao, and assorted round little soup dumplings twisted at the top. We had a steamed crabmeat-and-pork dumpling, which I just adored. Crustacean and pork dumplings are my faves. I love the texture of the lobster or shrimp or crab swimming in the porky soupiness as you chew. Half moons of steamed vegetable-and-fish dumplings, platters of steamed green-vegetable dumplings—usually a trio of mixed greens, some pickled, some just minced fresh, some mixed with pork. You can see the brilliant emerald green through the thin sheeting they come enrobed in. We devoured mushroom dumplings and indulged in the best shao-mai I’ve ever had. Shrimp and pork varieties, about an inch and a half high, pinched in the middle so they look like little nuclear power plants. The night’s specials were over the top in flavor and presentation. They brought us these shrimp dumplings, decorated like a teeny little shrimp replete with tails and eyes. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world except in some of the dumpling palaces in Xian in the People’s Republic.

The buns came next. We powered through their
char siu bao
, a light doughy bun filled with barbecued pork, steamed and baked buns filled with mixed vegetables. There were sweet red-bean-and-sesame buns dotted with a teeny circle of filling on the top to distinguish them from the savory varieties. We had a black
glutinous rice dish that absolutely blew my mind, it was so dense. It was pitch black and looked as if it had been steamed in banana leaf and unfolded onto the plate—like a power bar of rice. We had plates of sautéed water spinach called
on-choy
, mixed greens and gai lan bathed in oyster sauce, and sugar snap pea shoots woktossed with ginger and burnt chilies.

Somehow, we found room for the two entrées listed on the menu. One was a chicken steamed over rice and the other one a fried pork chop. They were both admirable dishes, but if you ask me, a waste of stomach space when there are such incredible dumplings to be had. Almost no one orders them. Din Tai Fung is all about the dumplings, created in the male-dominated kitchen, served by giggling girls in short skirts, thick stockings, and clunky high heels. A huge winner.

The only real downer of the evening was the red bean rice cake dessert. I often find Chinese desserts to be disappointing. Quick, name your favorite. See? We had mashed red bean and glutinous rice patties that our Taiwanese cohorts just wolfed down. Me, I just don’t get the sweet bean paste mixed with rice. Not enough contrast in flavor or texture for my taste, but so be it.

Bingyi Yang, Din Tai Fung’s founder, arrived in Taiwan in 1948. He began working in the cooking oil business. Ten years later, his oil store closed. However, Yang remained optimistic and managed to open his own oil shop in 1958, called Din Tai Fung Oil Store. Din Tai Fung turned into a successful oil shop, so much so that he opened another location in the bustling Xinyi Road area. In the 1970s, cheap tinned salad oil flooded the market, leaving Yang’s business hanging by a thread. Taking the advice of a friend, Yang and his wife turned half of the shop into a steamed dumpling operation. They never advertised, but word of mouth brought people in. Eventually, business exploded and they soon stopped selling oil altogether. Locals and travelers alike flocked to their restaurant, where everything is made by hand and quality control is job one. These guys do it right, with a refrigerated room to roll dumplings
and a hot room to steam them. Sitting at long banks of tables, cheek to jowl with diners not in your party, it’s definitely intimate, but boy, you will not find better dumplings anywhere in the world. If you have never had a soup dumpling with paper-thin translucent skin, dipped into a little bowl of red or black vinegar infused with fresh ginger, and finished with a drizzle of aged soy sauce, you have not lived. When that mixture of soup, meat, and sauce explodes in your mouth, it all marries together harmoniously, which is why I think dumplings are the world’s most perfect food.

lthough it has yet to achieve the everyday normalcy hot dogs and donuts have in this country, sushi is perhaps the most popular food in the United States, possibly in the world. Over the last five years, hundreds of millions of Russian and Chinese middle-class consumers came online, joining the legions of global sushi nuts. Demand increased so drastically that the prices high-quality fish were able to garner at wholesale fish markets around the world hiccupped forward almost overnight, responding to and then reigniting a giant sea change in demand.