Soup dumpling specialists Din Tai Fung to open a location in Las Vegas

Din Tai Fung, the Taiwanese restaurant chain known for its xiao long bao, will open a location at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas next year.

The new restaurant is taking over the space in the casino formerly occupied by the Aria Cafe. It will include an open kitchen where customers can watch cooks hand-stuffing and folding the soup dumplings. Besides xiao long bao, it will also serve pot stickers, pork buns, noodle soups and fried pork chops.

When the first Din Tai Fung in the U.S. opened in an Arcadia strip mall in 2000, wait times often exceeded two hours. It helped popularize xiao long bao and encouraged many diners to venture into the San Gabriel Valley for the first time.

Din Tai Fung has since expanded in the U.S. to multiple locations in Southern California, Northern California, Washington and Oregon.

The Aria location will be Din Tai Fung’s first in Las Vegas, which the restaurant chain’s chief executive, Frank Yang, called a “significant milestone.”

Din Tai Fung is the latest Asian restaurant chain to expand to Las Vegas. Chinese fine dining restaurant Mott 32 opened at the Palazzo at the Venetian Resort in January, and two months ago, dim sum specialist Tim Ho Wan opened at the Palms Casino Resort.

Din Tai Fung, 3730 S. Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas; (702) 590-7111.