What's common between the Ding Tai Fung in Hong Kong, Shanghai, LA, and Taipei? Answer: they are consistently very good, actually exceptional! That's the DTF name.
Coming to the Ding Tai Fung in Markham, I expected the same. Well...it isn't the same. It missed the mark. We ordered 14 dishes and everything was good but not great!
What makes a good Xiao Long Bao? For me, 1) needs to be juicy 2) meat cooks just right 3) skin is thin but not to thin where it will break easily 4) serves hot and 5) The top of the bun is edible...some are way too clustered together where I would not eat the top.
The Xiao Long Bao here met all 5 of my expectations but it just didn't taste "WOW"...like the other DTF in cities I mentioned above. Don't get me wrong. Food was pretty good but with the DTF name, it wasn't good enough.
The only memorable thing is the soup noodles (4 stars). Everything else was just....eh....2.9 to 3.1 stars.