There are currently four Din Tai Fungs in California. Only two have liquor licenses. One of them is the Din Tai Fung at South Coast Plaza, which also happens to be the only Din Tai Fung in Orange County.
Apart from the option of having something alcoholic as a chaser to your juicy pork dumplings, the liquor license means that South Coast Plaza’s Din Tai Fung actually has a bar. And this is good because the bar is like the Single Rider line at Space Mountain. When the wait for a table goes north of an hour, you beeline it there for the next open bar stool. Everything you can order in the dining room, you can order at the bar; plus you can watch as an actual bartender mixes one of seven specialty cocktails the restaurant offers.
If you’re going to order one, it might as well be the Popping Blood Orange Boba Martini, a martini that’s equal parts James Bond and Jackie Chan. It’s a particularly strong drink, with Ketel One Orange, Solerno Liqueur, and lemonade shaken so vigorously, the surface glistens with fine ice crystals. But then, the boba goes in and so does one of those giant neon-colored boba straws. You probably won’t ever catch Agent 007 sipping this drink, even if Din Tai Fung sponsors the next film. Not even Daniel Craig can make sucking up boba from a martini glass look cool.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.
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