A note on the words: xiaolongbao are Shanghai-style soup dumplings — thin skins holding hot broth and pork; menma is seasoned fermented bamboo shoot; A-cai is a Taiwanese leafy green; shumai is an open-topped steamed dumpling. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
Din Tai Fung, Shibuya Scramble Square on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Drinkers, thank you for waiting. It is Hangover Meshi time.
This time, a Taiwanese restaurant on the 13th floor of Shibuya Scramble Square.
Din — Tai — Fung
— here we are!
Din Tai Fung means, above all, xiaolongbao. The two have become practically synonymous.
Arriving at lunchtime, I suspected trouble — and sure enough, a proper queue. We took a number from the staff and settled in to wait.
And promptly started drinking! Highball!
What is this! It arrived before the xiaolongbao!
Not that I mind — wontons make a perfectly good highball snack in their own right.
A clear chicken-based soup, slippery thin noodles, and great fat wontons rolling about in it. The wonton skins are thin and quivering; bite in and the snap of shrimp and the sweet savour of pork come flooding out. The soup’s gentle chicken umami and faint salt quietly lift both noodles and wontons.
Taiwanese menma. The crunch of these extra-thick pieces is almost bamboo-shoot-like! Then the distinctive fermented tang, and the gentle seasoning of sesame oil and soy spreading through. Made deliberately mild, so a drop of soy sauce or black vinegar suits it beautifully!
What is this! It arrived before the xiaolongbao! (Second time.)
Xiaolongbao filled with sweet red-bean paste. They looked scaldingly hot, so I let them sit a while. Eaten once cooled: good. Dessert-like, but delicious! Essentially an anko roll in dumpling form.
At last! The xiaolongbao!
The long-awaited entrance. If keeping us waiting was the strategy, it worked perfectly — we were desperate for these.
Din Tai Fung means “xiaolongbao”. Born in Taiwan, the emblem of a brand the New York Times once picked among the world’s ten great restaurants — you cannot claim to know Din Tai Fung without eating this!
The lid of the steamer lifts: a rush of steam, and the beautiful sight of glossy dumplings in rows. Eighteen pleats gathered at the crown of each skin — artisan work, the balance of thinness and strength perfect. It does not tear as you lift it, yet dissolves the moment it meets your mouth. “Exquisite” is precisely this.
Onto the spoon; tear the skin a little. Scalding soup comes welling out. Cool it a moment and sip the soup first! Then take the pork filling, skin and all: the savour of the pork, the body of the soup, the chew of the skin — magnificent.
Also lovely eaten sharp and clean with shredded ginger and the house black-vinegar soy.
My current obsession: jellyfish. If I see it on a menu, it gets ordered.
This jellyfish is remarkably thick-cut. Crisp, clean-snapping jellyfish in a sweet-sour rice-vinegar dressing, tangled with chopped spring onion and sesame oil — the Taiwanese build. Tremendous jellyfish presence.
We meet again: A-cai! I believe the last time I ate this was also at a Taiwanese place.
Its charm is a crunch somewhere between lettuce and spinach.
A-cai flashed through a fierce wok, garlic toastiness and sesame-oil richness clinging to every leaf — the royal road of Taiwanese home cooking. The crisp bite, the slight bitterness of the greens, the punch of the garlic: that trio is the whole secret of a good stir-fried green!
“Shumai”, they say — but what exactly separates it from a xiaolongbao?! Whether or not there is a shrimp on top as a lid? That was my theory, anyway.
The skin is chewy and loosely gathered; the shrimp’s snap comes first, then fatty savour and juices surge out of the pork filling.
It really is a xiaolongbao wearing a shrimp on its head!
It suits the black vinegar and ginger just as well — I hereby rule it an honorary xiaolongbao.
Small portions each, but we grazed across a wide stretch of the menu. Din Tai Fung means xiaolongbao, yes — but the menu runs deep, and all sorts of Taiwanese dishes are here to be had. Know just this much — it is not only xiaolongbao! — and this becomes a very usable restaurant!
Too full to manage it this time, but…
…I wanted the daikon mochi!!!
May you meet something good to eat today too.
Din Tai Fung, Shibuya Scramble Square (Chinese / Shibuya Station, Shinsen Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
