Yesterday, Din Tai Fung at Melbourne Emporium announced a one-off 18-course dinner and tickets sold out in one and a half hours. Today they've announced a second night with two sittings and an extra 80 tickets available to this dumpling extravaganza.
And what do you get for your hard earned $48? Prepare for a winter feats of monolithic proportions. You'll get to try new dishes to the Din Tai Fung menu, like Peking duck spring rolls, crispy roll with lobster, and deep fried wontons with crab stick, cream cheese, and fish roe.
But really, everyone just wants another crack at that giant xiao long bao, which is seven times larger than your standard silky soup dumpling and comes with a straw so you can drink the soup before tucking into the ginger-scented pork filling.
They're messing with the traditional dumpling fillings with the addition of Hawaiian pizza dumplings and chicken and mushroom jiao zi for savoury snacks. For the sugar fiends you also find green tea, sesame mochi and chocolate banana encased in Din Tai Fung's signature 18-fold dumpling skins. There will be black truffle pork dumpling, made with squid ink so that they look like a yin yang; seafood and fish roe dumpling; crab meat with roe and pork dumplings; and a lucky dumpling made of eight lucky ingredients like wolfberry and vermicelli.
Tickets will not last long so book now or have that giant dumpling haunt your dreams for the rest of winter.
Photograph: supplied