Din Tai Fung's Thirsty Reservations Site Has Zero Chill!
Din Tai Fung's Thirsty Reservations Site Has Zero Chill!
You'll find great soup dumplings at the long-awaited dim sum spot, but the Yelp booking site is maddening
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Getting into Din Tai Fung | A cautionary tale
So I finally ate at Din Tai Fung, the world’s preeminent chain for Shanghainese soup dumplings. If you’ve ever tried to do the same, I extend my sympathies.
We all knew getting in would be a challenge. The Taipei-based company held a Michelin star for years in Hong Kong — extremely rare for a dim sum spot. And while DTF, as it’s known, runs over 180 restaurants globally, including quite a few in California, there was never an East Coast location.
The Manhattan opening, of course, was delayed. Again and again. People literally lost their sh!t. Some folks left one-star Google reviews before a single meal was served, as Eater reported. Then finally, in July, Din Tai Fung opened in Times Square. It’s the world’s largest location, with 450 seats spread out over 25,000 square feet. That’s roughly the size of six Katz’s.
They should’ve built a bigger restaurant. Nighttime tables are scare. And the door policy is “reservations-only.” Again, none of this is necessarily surprising; the arrival of DTF is a generational event for the city’s dumpling scene.
What’s particularly wild, however, is just about everything you experience until you start eating. Or let me be more blunt: The food is great, but the Yelp-powered reservations system is absolutely bananas. It’s the type of head-spinning awfulness that will impact your demeanor, as well as your relationships with loved ones and small animals.
So here’s what I did, and what I endured, to get in. Just so you’re warned.
Thursday | The day before
I click on the reservations tab, but Din Tai Fung informs me that, due to my location on Long Island, there are no DTFs close enough to me, lol. Game over!
I finally find the booking portal. It is not administered by Resy or Tock, popular sites that get folks excited about restaurants. It is run by Yelp, a billion dollar company that lets people publicly yell at restaurants. I see a lot of availability for next week, so I tell myself I’ll book something later on. This is a grave mistake.
After logging back on later, I see zero availability. I spend the next hour engaging in my favorite antisocial activity: hitting refresh on a reservations page. I finally snag a seat for the following day. I can relax now.
I cannot relax. DTF texts me within seconds and asks that I download the Yelp app to “confirm” my reservation. Apparently, the credit card guarantee wasn’t enough to keep everyone happy.
I contemplate a quiet rebellion. Because I have the BASE-jumper risk tolerance of someone who spent $100K on a Columbia University international affairs degree, I throw caution to the wind and decide not to download the app.
DTF’s thirsty reservations bot isn’t having any of my ghosting. It texts me again, six fcking minutes later, asking me once more to confirm. Like, we just met!
One minute later: I confirm the reservation, because I am weak, and do not deserve to marry.
Friday | Things get crazier
The reservations bot starts throwing more clingy texts my way. Nine minutes before my 2:00 p.m. reservation, DTF messages to say my table is “almost ready,” and that I must “check in” within 15 minutes to “keep” my spot. I should also download the app for the any “updates,” I’m told.
Honestly, I do not want any [expletive-omitted] updates, like this is some sort of gate change at Terminal 4. I just want to eat in peace. But now I start doing SAT-style math in my head because of the 15 minute thing. Like, do I have to get there by 2:06 p.m.??
At 2:00 p.m., I walk into the glass cube above Din Tai Fung — imagine the Fifth Avenue Apple Store, but with drapes. I also admire the sign that greets you in the foyer. It reads: Reservations Only. Very hospitable.
I ride the elevator down, and walk towards the check-in line. It is 13 people long. After I join the queue, it stretches to 20 people.
I try to check in online, because line cutting is one of my favorite activities in the world (TSA Pré is a form of worship). Alas, this does not work. I tap on a “confirm” button in the app and Din Tai Fung gives me an error message and tells me to call the restaurant. I scream on the inside.
My heart starts to race, as I only have two more minutes to check in.
The line moves quickly because there are literally 10 people working behind the host desk. Whew. I make it on time. A staffer confirms my name, and tells me to hang out in a holding area. She gives me a paper order sheet and a Bic pen so that I’m ready to keep things moving when I get to my table. Just a little homework.
Din Tai Fung is pumping a very unique scent into the holding area. I’m getting pine and lychee. It smells like a Vegas casino. I take a seat next to a small meditation pond, surely designed to help patrons quell their inner rage.
I receive another text. The messaging is no longer a nuisance, because this type of nagging has already become normalized, and I have learned to accept my fate in this dystopian Terry Gilliam flick. And anyway, I presume the text is about my table being ready.
I presumed wrong. DTF is getting all needy again. It hits me up with a link to a 15 question survey about my future dining experience, so that I can keep these McKinsey rubrics in mind while eating. The questionnaire includes a variety of prompts, including a numbered scale, cute emojis (angry red, hearts in eyes), and text boxes. Because I seek peace, I take an oath not to respond.
A staffer leads me to a table. It is not close, so we make some small talk. I ask if they plan on taking more walk-ins as a matter of principle, and the short answer is “no.”
The staffer walks me past the bar, which seems like a nice place for me, a solo diner. If only. There is an entirely separate booking page for the bar, also on Yelp, but it was all booked up. So the host leads me to a nice table for four.
So yeah, just me at an oversized table. I’m wearing a Hawaiian shirt from Uniqlo and I look like the guy in a club whose friends ditched him after he ordered a bottle of Goose. At least I’m finally free to start ordering food now!
Hospitality shouldn’t feel like a trip to the DMV
Complaining about a tough reservation is a New York pastime as ingrained as booing the Boston Red Sox. That said, I try to be judicious about this sort of thing in my critical capacity. I can’t be in the business of blaming good restaurants for being popular, and unless you’re dining at Carbone or Lilia, the crowds usually settle down after a while.
But my gripe with Din Tai Fung isn’t that it’s a difficult resy. It’s that the website and booking system make the restaurant feel too much like a trip to JFK. I generally find that Resy, Tock, and OpenTable are pretty judicious about pinging me these days. Sometimes I’ll get a quiet push notification about dinner coming up in a few hours. But that’s about it. Din Tai Fung and Yelp, instead, are sending out multiple texts with specific tasks — in an era when we’re all getting messaged and slacked by our bosses, friends, and assorted furniture boutiques we can’t unsubscribe from.
It’s not very chill.
Behind the paywall | What to order at Din Tai Fung
What makes the crab xiaolongbao so damn good
Assessing the more expensive black truffle dumplings
Why the dessert dumplings are an absolute must
How much you’ll spend at DTF
How to actually get in, and other spots for xiaolongbao