A quick consultation decided it was time to head back to World Square, since it would be around one when we got to Din Tai Fung, and if we took our time over lunch the logistics of the next bit, would be reasonably straightforward. A walk from Travelodge to Hilton would probably get us there around two-thirty or a quarter to three.
What we weren't banking on was the queue, which threw the plans into a momentary turmoil. It was a good fifteen metres long and raised a question mark about timing. Only a momentary one, but an issue that needed the implications analysed. We could, after all, have gone elsewhere, and part of the motive for the morning's reconnaissance had been the scoping out of alternative lunch arrangements.
Nothing had, however, seared itself on our consciousness, and it only took a minute or so to realise that the queue at the dumpling operation actually worked better for us. We joined it, received an order chit and buzzer when our turn came, took a seat in the waiting area and perused the options. Those considerations go better with an actual menu, and Madam scrounged one while I scrounged a pen from the two blokes at the next table.
Din Tai Fung (and this is as much for Hughesy's memory as it is for The Interested Reader) operates on a variation on the yum cha principle, but instead of having women pushing trolleys around and hawking the contents, you fill out the form, and the member of the wait staff serving your area takes it away. Clever. If you don't need space for the trolleys going around you can pack in more paying customers, and, boy, do they pack them in! It was around two-fifteen when we left and the queue was still in operation, as it had been for the duration.
Significantly, you don't need to order everything at once. The order form goes, a little clipboard with the details of the order comes back, the details are scratched off as each dish arrives and what you might have thought was your old order form underneath that turns out to be a new one so you can repeat the procedure until you're fully sated.
We went for eight of the trademark dumplings, a serve of stir fried spinach and garlic and half a dozen of the spicy wontons (#106, if my memory serves me well), Chinese tea and a glass of Neagle Rock Riesling. It wasn't quite enough, and that second order form kicked into play to reprise the wontons. If we'd ordered a two more lots of them I'd have demolished both. The whole thing came to a pretty reasonable $57.80, and the reorder had us sitting nicely in the right logistical time frame.