I still have three food reports to come from Seoul in February/March and one more from New York in May. I’ll get those done by the end of the month. But I’m first going to sneak in the first report from our ongoing trip to California. First up is our first meal out, eaten at the start of last week. The boys had asked to eat soup dumplings/xiao long bao on this trip and so we decided to kick off our gorging at the Costa Mesa location of Din Tai Fung. This was the missus and my first visit to Din Tai Fung in more than 11 years and the first time with the boys in tow. That first visit was not to this branch, of course, which is much newer; it was to the Arcadia branch (I’m not sure if it is still extant). I reported on that meal in August 2013. I noted then that while the meal was fine, it was nothing out of the ordinary and not worth the hassle associated with eating at Din Tai Fung. What did we think of it this time around? Read on. Continue reading →