i love juicy.

juicy, savory, delicious soup dumplings, that is.

my dear cousin r is in town visiting for a bit, in the process of moving from nyc to join her boyfriend in denver. and before she takes off on vacation, i managed to squeeze myself onto her schedule to have lunch.

i've been wanting to try din tai fung for ages and ages, after reading lots and lots of debates on the local chowhound boards about who makes the best soup dumplings in the l.a. area. apparently, DTF is a huge chain in china, and these are their specialty - pretty little dumplings filled with pork, or pork and crab, or veggies, and a bit of delicious, savory soup. i first tried these at mei long village a few months ago, and fell in love. heh.

knowing that this place gets absolutely packed (weekend or weekday), i picked r up at her parents' house nice and early, and we arrived at the restaurant about ten minutes after it opened. there were only a few tables occupied, and the bean happily sat in her high chair, playing with a plastic spoon and styrofoam bowl. i love that she's still little enough to be so easily entertained. i was equally easily entertained by the instructions printed on the chopsticks wrapper on how to eat the dumplings.

we perused the menu, wrote in our selections, and sat back to chat. and thankfully, it wasn't long before the grub started coming.

juicy pork dumplings. we also ordered juicy pork and crab ones, and they look exactly like these, so i didn't bother to take a picture.

sauteed green beans. i don't know what kind of crack they put in these, but i couldn't stop eating them. dee-lish-us.

shanghai rice cake. this was interesting - i'd read good things about this dish, but had no idea what to expect. it was a'ight.

shrimp fried noodles. these were yummy, but nothing extraordinary. no different from basic shrimp lo mein you'd find at any chinese restaurant.

and that was it! i decided that, although i'll take just about anything with crabmeat in it, i wasn't a huge fan of the pork & crab dumplings. the straight pork ones i could've eaten all day long. mmmmmm.

when the check arrived, i was a little alarmed at how much it was. this place, compared to mei long village and other dim sum places in the area, was pricey! and when i reached for my wallet, i was pissed to find that my debit card wasn't in it. i fumbled through the giant diaper bag, and...nothing. i was so embarrassed that r ended up picking up the tab for lunch!

oh, well. we're going to have tea on friday. i'll get her back then.