I agree that the chili oil is very nice and even a small dab makes things appropriately spicy, so you don’t have to douse your meals with tons of greasy oil to impart spice and flavor.
Great to know about the $15 corkage! And while DTF isn’t fine dining, I find it a much more pleasant setting than other similarly priced places, so good to know you can BYOB for only $15 as opposed to the $50 or so that many fine dining places are now charging.
Exactly, you can enjoy value high performing food friendly whites and reds with their food and have fun with it. Even nice a bourgogne blanc or Alsace would be fine with the items containing pork and/or shrimp. You can drink something nicer and nobody will judge (because people usually don’t drink alcohol and their wine selection is mediocre at best, at least for the one in NorCal…I guess boba sells better than their house selection Pinot).
By Taiwanese expat standards, Din Tai Fung is “fine dining” Taiwanese. Especially given the prices when compared to $2 street food in Taiwan, or local $7 beef noodles.
OMG, I see on the DTF website that they sell the house chili oil, but apparently only at their Asian locations. Now that is definitely something I would buy. I guess too complicated to import it to the U.S. for sale and perhaps not a big enough market.
Alas, my efforts to hack the Din Tai Fung menu have come to an end, thankfully with the end of my 14-day cold, which was what drove me to Din Tai Fung in the first place for soup.
What caused me to admit defeat was the shrimp with rice cakes and spinach. I had thought there might be plenty of shrimp and spinach and that I could pick around the carbs. Alas, there were 3 or 4 teeny tiny shrimp, a few slivers of spinach and tons of gelatinous rice cakes, all in some very greasy sauce.
Very few restaurants have ever defeated my ability to follow my usual day to day diet of lean protein and vegetables with minimal carbs, but Din Tai Fung is one. The soup is nice though and I find the atmosphere quite pleasant for a chain restaurant in a mall.
The low carb options from glancing at the Century City location’s menu:
Anything under appetizers except for kurobuta pork with sticky rice cone. Skip the pork chop if grease is an issue for the diet.
Greens (you may want to customize and try to request them to use less oil less salt, if that matters). I’ve found consistently that the garlic kale stir fry is my favorite. And I do not like kale at all for the most part. They know how to use wok hay, garlic, and salt properly, at least for the NorCal branch.
XLBs usually have fatty pork inside, so proceed depending on your dietary preference
steamed dumplings - maybe the ones that don’t have pork. Pot stickers I personally love but they are rather calorific and heavy duty (as light as they may seem in comparison to other Northern Chinese places). Any steamed bun might be worth avoiding also. And again, avoid the ones with sticky rice in them.
The wontons (no carbs) are pretty good, I do enjoy the shrimp and pork spicy wontons for sure that’s worth the quota…and adding chili sauce on top of that is quite heavenly.
avoid all rice cake dishes and of course noodles and rice dishes
If you make exception with dessert, the taro XLB is the one to get. The sesame versions, as much as I love black sesame, tends to be too chunky and dry which is a no go for me.
Funny how we thread drifted to DTF to minimize the NAYgi and lack of niboshi disappointment…
I went to the Ramen Nagi in Tokyo’s Golden Gai area in October - INSANEEEE… I’ve heard century city’s won’t have the niboshi/sardines though 
The longest line for any restaurant in South Bay is the Ramen Nagi at Valley Fair mall. It’s okay. But I’m really over the hype machine every time a famous Japanese ramen chain opens over here, and the stupid long lines that come with it for an impersonal eat-and-leave experience. And every single one is always “famous.”
Finally, getting closer [Eater LA]… #MoreTonkotsuRamen
When they “Tuesday,” do they mean today?
I think I’m gonna wait for a report on how long the wait is! I also hope they have outdoor seating…
Edit: the sub-headline clearly says tomorrow, so it is today! ::smacks head::
The grand opening is today! Went to a sneak preview last weekend. It was delicious!
Went for lunch yesterday. Waited 20 minutes at 12:15 as a party of 1, so people are pretty excited about it. I had the “Red King” which is a spicy version of their “Original King” tonkotsu ramen. Egg is extra, but well executed and worth the extra $1.75. Indoor seating only, with two large communal tables that they’re purposefully keeping pretty empty. They’re a cashless establishment.
Noodles are good, broth has a good depth of flavor beyond just pork and salt, chashu was very thinly sliced (and a little leaner than I prefer), and overall this is a delicious bowl of ramen.
BUT. It’s still Tonkotsu. There are four other good places to get a bowl of Tonkotsu ramen on Sawtelle barely a mile west of Century City. It’s a bummer that Nagi doesn’t want to try the Niboshi broth in the US, and I heard more than one customer mention it to their server. As a westsider who loves ramen, I’m jealous of you all that can pop over to Afuri without making it a whole thing.
is there anywhere to get niboshi in LA proper?
Grand Opening at Westfield Santa Anita
