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When is Din Tai Fung opening in New York City? Well, it looks like we finally have an answer: the long-awaited NYC location of the highly acclaimed, Taiwan-based restaurant chain will officially throw open its doors in midtown Manhattan on Thursday, July 18. And in even better news, you can secure a reservation at the Michelin-starred dim sum den as early as tomorrow.
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Yes, Din Tai Fung reservations are going live on Yelp on July 2 for the new location at 1633 Broadway between West 50th and 51st Streets, which will not only be the brand’s first outpost on the East Coast but also its biggest global location yet. (The chain boasts a whopping 171 locations worldwide, from Seattle to Shanghai, from Manila to Melbourne.)
Be sure to set a phone reminder if you want to score one of the 450 seats at the reservations-only spot, given the sheer fervor that’s been worked up over the NYC newcomer before it’s even opened, we have a feeling that booking a table is going to be a digital Hunger Games.
To commemorate the grand opening on July 18, the Din Tai Fung team will hold a ribbon cutting as well as opening remarks before the restaurant kicks off with its usual parade of dumpling steaming, beef searing, soup simmering and the like. Diners will actually see those dumplings being made fresh—over 10,000 daily—via an open kitchen visible behind a glass wall, reports Grubstreet.
The Din Tai Fung brand began as a cooking oil shop in Taipei in 1958 by the late Yang Bing-Yi and his wife Lai Pen-Mei. The popularity of Yang's xiao long bao, or soup dumplings, however, resulted in the owner phasing out his oil business and turning Din Tai Fung into the full-fledged restaurant that it is today. Those deliberately creased dumplings, known for their golden ratio of "18 folds" made by hand, are still a signature of the franchise.