Hello Kitty Taipei tour day 2: back at the original

It was time to feed Hello Kitty again, and when I asked her where she wanted to go, not surprisingly the response was Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐).  I guess there's something to be said about going to the "original"... so we headed to the original shop and duly lined up with all the tourists.  This being a weekday and all, and on account of us not gettin' there too late, we ended up lining outside for less than 15 minutes.

We decided to take it easy and not over order, but of course the focus was squarely on the xiaolongbaos (小籠包) that the place is famous for.

We took a small appetizer, which was a mix of bean sprouts, dried bean curd, kelp, glass vermicelli.  Pretty tasty.

Xiaolongbao with crab roe (蟹粉小籠包) - just gotta do this when you're here... and they make a little crab out of dough to mark the steamer.

Gotta say... still love that filling with rich and yummy crab roe.  Slurp!

Xiaolongbao with black truffle (松露小籠包) - just had to do this...

...even though the ones in Hong Kong are better since - according to memory - they use shavings instead of grounds.  Still very fragrant, though.

Xiaolongbao with shrimp and loofah (絲瓜蝦仁小籠包) - always one of my favorites.  I love the green taste of loofah, and it works well with the shrimp.  Much cleaner flavors after the crab roe and black truffle.

Chicken soup in a pot (元盅雞湯) - simple but good.

I still love coming to Din Tai Fung.  The thin wrappers of the dumplings are still unbeatable, and I do like coming back to the original restaurant, so I don't mind fighting with the tourists once in a while.  After all, I'm hanging with a tourist myself today...