Toronto’s most confusing Chinese restaurant is finally changing its name

After a quarter-century of inadvertently leading Toronto diners astray, the city’s most confusingly-named Chinese restaurant is finally shaking it up.

If you’ve never heard of Taiwan-based Chinese food chain Din Tai Fung (DTF), I hate to break it to you: you may live under a rock. Founded nearly 70 years ago in Taipei, the restaurant chain has blossomed into a global phenomenon, boasting locations across the globe, from Indonesia to the United States.

For Canada’s part, our sole location of the chain exists on Vancouver’s Alberni Street. Toronto, at least thus far, has been left out of the DTF loop. Our influencers can post at Nobu or any other selection of local dim sum spots, but barring air travel, not at Din Tai Fung. Oh, the humanity!

That said, there are likely a handful of people in the city who believe that they have dined at a Toronto location of Din Tai Fung before, mistaking Scarborough’s Ding Tai Fung for the chain.

That extra G makes a world of difference, but it’s easy enough to look past in the haze of hanger, and it’s led to plenty of confusion during the restaurant’s 27 years in business.

Soon, though, all of the confusion will be wiped away as Ding Tai Fung embarks on a major rebrand that’ll separate it, once and for all, from its similarly-named competitor.

“After 27 wonderful years serving you as DING TAI FUNG, we’re changing our name,” reads the caption of an Instagram post announcing the name change.

According to the post, Ding Tai Fung reached a commercial agreement with Din Tai Fung to transfer the Scarborough restaurant’s trademark to the chain. Henceforth, the restaurant formerly known as Ding Tai Fung will now be named Xiao Long Bao.

Though the name is changing, the Ding Tai Fung team says, everything else will stay the same: “the flavours, the spirit, and the team that has proudly served you for over two decades.”

Who knows. Maybe this new move means that Din Tai Fung is preparing to open a Toronto location at long last — we’ll just have to wait and see. Until then, Ding Tai Fung, or should I say Xiao Long Bao, is more than capable of hitting the spot.

Xiao Long Bao is located at 175 Commander Blvd.