A popular restaurant that people have come to love throughout the past few years has been introduced to the Irvine Spectrum Center in Irvine, California. Din Tai Fung was originally founded in 1958 in Taipei, Taiwan as a cooking oil retail shop.
Din Tai Fung’s founder, Mr. Bing-Yi Yang, was born in China’s Shanxi Province in the year 1927. He immigrated to Taiwan at 20 years old with 20 dollars in his pocket and he eventually secured his first job in Taipei as an oil delivery man.
Din Tai Fung officially opened at the Irvine Spectrum Center on March 2, 2026. However, there was a soft opening a few weeks prior in February with some excellent reviews that excited many people.
In the long list of reviews, one woman stated that “The ambiance was upscale, and the food was perfect, as always.”
Another person said “Even though it was a soft opening, they were offering the full menu.”
On the left side of the restaurant, there are no walls, but instead huge windows for the public to watch how the cooks create their delicious dumplings by hand. A special menu item that is a favorite of the students at Aliso Niguel High School are the chocolate dumplings.
These slightly smaller and chewier desert dumplings have a molten chocolate center. They are served exactly like soup dumplings, very hot and in a bamboo steamer. This is a nice surprise for those who are prepared to eat a fabulous desert after a tasty meal.
Shaya Danesh (11) says “I always enjoy the pork xiao long bao or any of the soup dumplings. I also think that the chocolate dumplings are really yummy and it’s nice how they incorporated a new form of dumplings into the desert menu.”
At Irvine Spectrum’s Din Tai Fung, restaurant hours are from eleven to ten from Sunday to Thursday. On both Fridays and Saturdays, the restaurant opens at eleven and closes at eleven, an hour later than week days, which allows the public to have a very late dinner.
Some other student favorites include chicken dumplings, string beans with garlic, kurobuta pork buns, shrimp and kurobuta pork dumplings, and sticky rice shao mai with kurobuta pork and mushroom.
Hallie Lewengrub (12) says “I think the atmosphere at Din Tai Fung is very calming and I love eating there with my friends because the dishes are so unique. My favorite thing to eat there is definitely the cucumber salad.”
Their specialties include the shrimp and kurobuta pork pot stickers, the truffle and kurobuta pork xiao long bao, and the black pepper beef tenderloin. Their whole slices of rich truffle are imported from Italy.
As well as delicious meals, Din Tai Fung’s has a variety of refreshing beverages. They have milk tea, iced black teas, matcha jasmine lattes, iced green teas, sea salt cream iced teas, orange green iced teas, lemon iced teas, honey lemonade, Taiwanese hot teas and orange juice.
At Din Tai Fung’s various locations, the taste and quality of their dishes remain consistent as their skilled chefs are trained to perfection with their amazing cooking techniques.
