HONG KONG — Yang Bing-yi, the founding father of Din Tai Fung, the Michelin-starred Taiwanese restaurant chain whose signature soup dumplings have attracted crowds world wide, has died at 96.
The corporate introduced his dying in a press release on Saturday. It didn’t say when or the place he died.
Mr. Yang and his spouse, Lai Pen-mei, opened their first modest storefront in 1958, laying the muse for what would change into a franchise that their youngsters and grandchildren have expanded to greater than 170 areas throughout Taiwan, mainland China and 13 different nations, together with america, Japan, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, with a menu that features such specialties as wontons in crimson chili oil, shredded tofu and seaweed salad, and steamed truffle-and-pork dumplings.
A Hong Kong department has been awarded a Michelin star 5 instances.
“What’s important about Din Tai Fung is that basically it was the primary meals model out of Taiwan that launched each Chinese language and Taiwanese cookery to the world,” Clarissa Wei, a meals author in Taipei and the creator of the forthcoming cookbook “Made in Taiwan,” mentioned in a telephone interview.
And though it didn’t invent the soup dumpling, or xiao lengthy bao — delicate dumplings ingeniously loaded with succulent, soupy fillings — Din Tai Fung launched it to a world viewers at a time when few individuals outdoors China knew what it was.
Born in 1927 in Shanxi Province, China, Mr. Yang fled to Taiwan in the summertime of 1948, when civil struggle erupted on the mainland. In Taiwan he discovered work as a deliveryman for Heng Tai Fung, a small store that bought cooking oil. He later took cost of the store’s accounts and stock. When he was 28, he married Ms. Lai, a co-worker. The couple labored collectively till the store closed, then opened Din Tai Fung as a cooking oil store.
The identify Din Tai Fung was a two-pronged tribute to their former office, Heng Tai Fung, and Din Mei Oils, their oil provider. Collectively, “din” refers to a cooking vessel, whereas “tai fung” combines the characters for “peace” and “abundance.”
The unique storefront, on Taiwan’s Xinyi Highway, bought peanut oil in bottles till vegetable oils in tin containers overtook the market within the Seventies. In 1972, to diversify their choices amid sinking earnings, the couple transformed half its storefront and commenced promoting steamed soup dumplings, which grew to become so fashionable that Din Tai Fung ultimately centered solely on serving meals.
“At first, I knew nothing concerning the expertise mandatory for making dumplings and different Shanghai snacks,” Mr. Yang informed Taiwan Today in 1997, “however I got down to be taught.”
Whereas the labor of meals preparation is tucked away in most Chinese language and Taiwanese eateries, kitchens with giant glass home windows are a outstanding function in a number of of Din Tai Fung’s eating places. From broad ledges and even “photograph spots” illuminated by brilliant lights, patrons can watch cooks pat the filling and seal every dumpling with the trademark 18 folds, pleated nimbly by hand.
“For the primary time ever, individuals have been in a position to see the sheer quantity of labor and approach that goes into making a soup dumpling,” mentioned Ms. Wei, the meals author.
The key to the seemingly miraculous stuffing of soup in a dumpling is mixing a scoop of chilly, gelatinized broth with the meat or vegetable filling. After the dumplings are positioned into bamboo baskets and steamed, the broth melts, forming a wealthy, fatty soup inside a pliant, paper-thin wheat pores and skin. Biting into one delivers a piping scorching explosion of flavors and textures.
In 1993, Din Tai Fung was included in a New York Instances checklist of 10 “high notch tables” from world wide. A 300-word evaluation by the chef Ken Hom described the restaurant as a “glowing clear” eatery of easy meals, the place “the cooks might be seen rolling out the dough to stuff the dumplings” in a small work space with billowing steamers.
The evaluation drew such giant crowds that, for a number of years, the restaurant stopped serving dumplings on weekdays.
Just a few years later, in 1996, Din Tai Fung opened its first restaurant in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, on the behest of the homeowners of a division retailer chain, who financed the enterprise and despatched cooks to coach in Taiwan. In 2000, it opened its first American location in a strip mall in Arcadia, Calif. An outlet is expected to open in Midtown Manhattan this yr.
Mr. Yang’s eldest son, Warren, has been the chairman of Din Tai Fung because the Nineteen Nineties. His brother, Frank, introduced Din Tai Fung to america.
Details about Mr. Yang’s survivors was not instantly accessible. Ms. Lai died in 1995.
Mr. Hom, the chef and author, mentioned in an interview that Mr. Yang’s drive for precision — right down to the diameter of the wrappers and the load of every soup dumpling — set a typical that has stood the take a look at of time and transcended borders.
“It’s constantly good, irrespective of the place I’ve eaten, in Singapore, Bangkok, L.A., London,” he mentioned. He added that he had made a observe of consuming the dumplings slowly, leaving some within the bamboo basket the place they’re served to look at whether or not the soupy filling would maintain up inside the skinny pores and skin. They at all times did.
“I may really feel his ardour to not solely get it proper, however — it’s virtually satisfaction — to make it completely good,” he mentioned.
Mr. Yang saved a low profile in his later years, however when he did converse to the media, it was typically to exult within the ability of his cooks and the standard of his meals, and sometimes to deflect criticism that his costs have been larger than many different noodle and dumpling retailers.
“We don’t care if individuals say that Din Tai Fung’s meals is pricey,” Mr. Yang informed reporters at an event in 2003. “Examine it with the rest and also you’ll know the distinction instantly.”
