More dumplings behind door No. 2

WHEN you see a line of people waiting for tables outside a restaurant, it's simultaneously intriguing and off-putting. Sure, there's usually something about the spot that's memorable, often a good deal (Versailles' garlicky roast pork, for example) or an after-hours experience (think Pink's), but just as often, there's bound to be disappointment because our dining options in this crazy city are so many and so varied that you know you can get even better food somewhere just down the street from wherever you see the people lining up.

But at the popular soup-dumpling house Din Tai Fung in Arcadia, seeing so many people so much of the time means fresh, fresh dumplings steaming their way out of the kitchen every minute. If you live nearby, it's all good news that Din Tai Fung has a new branch -- an annex, really -- and can serve double the number of patrons. (Maybe more important is that there's a big parking lot near the new spot's entrance.) Now you can time your visits to avoid the maddest crowds.

And if you don't live nearby, mark a map with a flag on this spot for weekends or other convenient times (before a visit to the arboretum, for example, or after an early morning at Santa Anita racetrack watching the horses work out). Because if you pick your time well -- not much later than 10:30 on a weekend morning, not much later than 5:30 or 6 on a weeknight, you'll have less wait time and more at-table time.

The food's the same in both places; in fact, the two cafes share a kitchen, though they're in adjoining mini-malls. In the new spot, whose address is Baldwin Avenue but whose entrance faces a rear parking lot, the decor is sleek and bright and dominated by the glass-walled dumpling room. There, half a dozen white-clad chefs frantically roll out long snakes of dough, cutting and shaping and doing whatever dumpling masters do to create the remarkable petite swirls of white dumpling skin that surround the fillings.

Each tin steamer -- you'll probably want to order a few per table -- typically holds 10 small dumplings. Some are crescent-shaped, some look like little cartoon sacks of gold, others resemble tiny sea anemones in the act of catching shrimp. There are also yeast-dough buns and sticky-rice buns.