Dough Zone Dumpling House – “The Seattle Din Tai Fung”

Dough Zone Dumpling House – International District

Recommended by: I briefly mentioned Dough Zone Dumpling House in my Little Kitchen review.  Friends of ours gave their own opinion on who had the best dumplings in Seattle.  They said if you take everything into consideration-price, quality, clean environment, taste, that Dough Zone Dumpling House was the best. We’d thought we’d revisit Dough Zone Dumpling House to see if they were right.

Description on the Dough Zone Dumpling House’s website: Our house special Q-bao are originated from the famous Shanghai Sheng Jian Bao (Pan Fried Buns). They are tasty buns fill with moist pork and wrapped with half fluffy, half crispy dough. Our Q-bao are made with quality ingredients and prepared in a traditional way. After being half steamed and half pan fried, buns are becoming soft on the top and crispy crust on the bottom. it’s PERFECTION.

Neighborhood/Type:  International District

Address: 504 5th Ave S #109, Seattle, WA 98104

What we ate/drank:  Pork Q Bao Buns, Beef Stew Noodles,  Pork & Shrimp Steamed Dumplings, Pork Xiao Long Bao, Dan Dan Noodles, Broccoli w/Oyster Sauce, Pork Wonton in Szechuan Sauce

Comments: Update 9/22/19: Dough Zone Dumpling just made Seattle Met’s 100 Best Restaurant

You can call Dough Zone Dumpling House, “The Local Din Tai Fung” or “The Seattle Din Tai Fung”.  It’s the restaurant that Dough Zone Dumpling House is most compared to.  We thought about doing a Dough Zone vs Din Tai Fung review as part of our Food War Series, but the logistics were just too hard to pull off.

Our history with Din Tai Fung:
Back in 2013, Din Tai Fung opened their first Seattle location in University Village. At the time Din Tai Fung only had branches in Los Angeles and Bellevue in the entire US. The long waits started immediately.  For the early goers who stood in line, there were bragging rights to have waited so long and posted pictures of meals on Instagram to rub it in their friends’ faces.   To this day, we still enjoy Din Tai Fung. We love their efficiency and consistently delicious dishes, but we’ve got to admit, we’ve seen the price go up and up the last few years, which is warranted. Obviously, with long lines still happening anybody who took Econ 101 knows prices will rise until demand is met. And the demand is still there. When Din Tai Fung first opened we felt the food portions, the yumminess and the low prices at the time, made for a screaming deal. Screaming deal now days? Not so much.

Back to our Dough Zone Dumpling House story:
During this time(2014) we heard of a place in the Eastside that had a same type of fanatical following.  We’d heard the stories of a place called, Dough Zone Dumpling House that had better food than Din Tai Fung.  As you know from our Third Culture Coffee post, we don’t go to the Eastside much, so all we could do was speculate and wonder if the stories were true.  We heard that they were expanding their empire on the Eastside with 2 Bellevue, a Redmond and Issaquah locations, so we knew it must be good to sustain 4 branches in a relatively small area.

Then in 2017 word that they were finally expanding to Seattle spread like wildfire. Finally we’d be able to taste for ourselves. In the Fall of 2017, Dough Zone Dumpling House opened in a brand new building in the ID(International District).  Of course the lines started as soon as the restaurant opened. We figured we’d wait a bit and let them work out the kinks and perhaps the lines would die down.  Our first time going was Christmas Eve of 2017 and we’ve been regulars ever since.

Like Din Tai Fung, there’s normally a long wait.  We’ve been extremely lucky each visit we’ve made to Dough Zone in that we’ve been seated immediately. Thank you, Food Gods! And then when we leave the waiting area is packed and we look at each other and say, “perfect timing”.

The prices per dish are definitely cheaper, but smaller than Din Tai Fung. I think we prefer it this way, because we’ve been able to try a lot of different dishes without getting too full.  And if you really like a certain dish you can always create your own bigger portion by ordering multiple orders.

The minute you sit down they give you a paper checklist to mark the dishes you want. They are literally back in 5 minutes to see if you’re ready.  Like us, I’m sure most returning visitors have their favorite dishes already in mind, so a quick turn around must be normal. No matter how busy it is, the dishes come out in rapid fire succession shortly after ordering. If you’re starving, this is a good thing.  If you’re there to have a leisurely meal and catch up with friends and family, shut your pie hole and start eating.  There’s an angry mob of people on the wait list screaming to get a seat.

One of the best qualities of Dough Zone Dumpling House is that it is right across the street from the International District Link Light Rail Station, so if you use the Link Light Rail or any of the buses that use the tunnel, it’s super convenient to get to.  We typically do take the Link Light Rail, but we’ve also just spent $20 worth of groceries at Uwajimaya a block away and got two hours of free parking.

Below are our ratings of some of our favorite dishes from our various visits. All are very good, but some are damn good!

Because we were advised to go hear specifically to compare the dumplings from our Little Kitchen’s Review, I have to say that Dough Zone’s are better than Little Kitchen’s dumplings, but not as good as Little Ting’s Kitchen.

Ratings:

Atmosphere: 4.50

Service: 4.75

Food/Drinks: 4.75

Bang for the Buck: 4.75

Overall: 4.70 

Locals Only Factor: “Locals Only” grading-We’ll assign a grading as to how “local” a place is.

• • Well known or Touristy. Most locals don’t go there unless they have business dinners or visitors in town.
  • Most locals know about it
  • Locals “in the know” know about it
  • Only those who live close by know about it.
  • You’re in on the secret. Don’t tell anybody!

Servers recommendations to visit in the future:  Not a server recommendation, but a fellow diner at Dough Zone Dumpling House advised they were there, because they intended to go to Mike’s Noodle House, but it had a long wait and mentioned they had the best Wonton Soup in Seattle.

Related Articles:

• Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Seattle Coffee Shops
• What a Visitor from Taiwan(24 F) Thought about Seattle
• Little Ting’s Dumplings – Best Dumplings in Seattle
• Green Lake Park Secrets- Murder, Crocodiles, Led Zeppelin, Ted Bundy, Secret Skateparks?