A new restaurant is now open at Downtown Disney!

Disney shared a while back that the iconic Din Tai Fung restaurant — famous for its soup dumplings — would be opening in the Anaheim shopping and dining district sometime this year, and now that time has officially come! Din Tai Fung is now open at Downtown Disney and we’re bringing you along for our first look!

Din Tai Fung is now open at Downtown Disney Anaheim! This iconic restaurant soft-opened on June 24th, so of course we had to check it out. We’ll be bringing you a full review soon, but for now, let’s see what all the fuss is about!

Din Tai Fung is a table service restaurant and right now, reservations are definitely recommended since there was quite a line outside when we stopped by! There’s a large, round bar with lots of seating as well as ample tables in the regular dining room area.

We took our seats and quickly got down to business looking at the menu — there’s a lot to choose from here!

In addition to a full laminated menu…

…you also get a paper Dim Sum menu to order from!

There’s even a little guide that teaches you how to eat xiao long bao — A.K.A. soup dumplings! It looks more complicated than it is and the payoff is totally worth it. Just trust us on that one!

Din Tai Fung is famous for soup dumplings, which are “hand-crafted right on sight,” at its current locations in Las Vegas, Costa Mesa, and other places in Southern California, Oregon, and Washington. These are in addition to international locations in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, Europe, and Thailand.

Current locations feature various soups, many different flavors of dumplings and buns, wontons, noodles, fried rice, and dessert dumplings filled with chocolate, red bean paste, or sweet taro. We tried the cucumber salad on this trip!

Din Tai Fung originally opened in Taipei, Taiwan. According to the restaurant’s website, Mr. Bing-Yi Yang immigrated to Taiwan and opened a shop selling cooking oil. He named the shop Din Tai Fung. He and his wife sold dumplings in their shop as well, called Xiao Long Bao (steamed pork soup dumplings). These dumplings became so popular that Mr. Yang “phased out his oil business” and Din Tai Fung became a full-blown restaurant.

Reservations can be made NOW on Yelp, and Disney has advised that this is a soft opening, which means there might still be some kinks to work out — so be patient with the employees if you decide to visit right after opening! We also got the chance to get a sneak peek of the merchandise that will be released once this spot opens, and you can check it out here.

We’ll be bringing you our full review of Din Tai Fung soon. In the meantime, make sure you stay tuned to the Disney Food Blog for all your Disneyland and Disney World needs!

Exclusive Sneak Peek at Din Tai Fung Merchandise at Downtown Disney!

Will you be trying this new restaurant? Tell us in the comments. 

The post FIRST LOOK at a NEW Restaurant NOW OPEN at Downtown Disney first appeared on the disney food blog.