June Chow grew up helping her mother run the family's restaurant.
After that, Chow swore she'd never go into the restaurant business... But she found herself reconsidering once she had kids to put through college.
In 2017, Chow opened the first Hello Dumpling location in Dallas.
She says it’s been a way to fill a gap in Chinese cuisine in the city — and give her customers a taste of her own nostalgia.
In celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, KERA's Miranda Suarez sat down with Chow to talk about how her restaurant came to fruition and what she's learned along the way.
These interview highlights have been edited for length and clarity. To listen to the full conversation, click the listen button above.
What made you want to open Hello Dumpling?
Truth be told, it wasn't because I love to work on weekends. It was simply because, and I will say with all honesty, I had two kids who were gonna go to college and looming debt was scaring the daylights out of me. I thought, 'okay, well, I don't wanna saddle them with debt and I don't wanna saddle myself with debt. I don't wanna work until I'm 95 and this time around, I wanted to do it my way.'
When did you feel the restaurant became a success?
I think in order for you to pursue any kind of business, you're gonna have some sort of delusional optimism. We live in East Dallas. It's kind of like a Chinese food desert over there. My mother's from Northern China. I grew up eating dumplings and noodles. And I wanted it to make dumplings like, akin to tacos.
I think one of the markers of success, which is one of my personal markers, is that I see a new generation of kids who come in. I've had more three-year-old birthday parties that want to come and have their parties at Hello Dumpling because they're like, I wanna have dumplings. And it is so lovely because kids identify with the noodles and the dumplings. Honestly, it's great. I think that there are all these things that I feel so gratified and I feel like it has made me successful now.
How do you define "soul food"?
Soul food to me... there are so many layers of meaning. When I went to Beijing, the smells that you would have would be cumin and curries and chilies and the things that you think, well, Chinese food is garlic and ginger and no, but it's not.
That is what the street vendors use. You would smell that if you're walking down the street and there'd be grilled meats and they'd sprinkle this on there and it was captivating. My tagline had to be something that was more than just, oh, it's just street food. It's not. It's soul food because it came from people creating something that wasn't this refined food. It was something that came from everyone.
What is the ideal order?
I try to start out saying, well, if you don't have any allergies, let's start out with the pork dumpling. Pork is the national meat of China. But I have six total different flavors or fillings. And each one has a little story.
The one that's the closest to my heart is the fish dumpling. People say, is that your favorite? Well, no, it's the one that has the story that's touched me the most, because it relates to my mom. My mother grew up on the Northeast coast of China in this peninsula, and that peninsula faces Korea. And when she was little, they would go to the ocean and they would fish. They would have seafood, and they would eat fish dumplings. It just reminds me of my mom and where she's from.
Miranda Suarez is a cohost of KERA's forthcoming talk show, NTX Now. Got a tip? Email her at msuarez@kera.org.
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