A

ccording to Li, "Our dumplings at Mei Mei are an expression of our Chinese heritage and our love for local and seasonal food here in the Northeast. We use some traditional Chinese ingredients, but for the most part, our dumplings are unique, like our cheddar scallion potato dumplings, which I like to call our 'love letter' to the pierogi. They are definitively not Chinese, but they are authentic to us and the multicultural household we grew up in." Why chorizo? Li explained that she was first inspired during college when she worked in a butcher shop. "There was always extra raw chorizo," she said. "I loved taking it home and trying to find new and exciting things to do with it, and dumplings ended up being my favorite application!" She sources the best chorizo she can find, using pork from heritage breed pigs that graze in the pastures of New York's Finger Lakes region. A Adding spicy chorizo to Chinese dumplings might be unconventional, but according to Boston Magazine, the savoury delight from Mei Mei Dumplings "might just be the best two-bite morsel in town". People just love dumplings," said Chef Irene Li, who co-founded Mei Mei as a food truck in 2012 with older siblings Andrew and Margaret. Mei Mei, which translates to "little sister" in Mandarin, is a nod to one of the siblings' favourite foods growing up. [jump to recipe] "Many of my favourite childhood memories are of making and eating dumplings in a kitchen full of noise and laughter and love," Li said. "I also love that dumplings are present all over the world. We like to say that dumplings make the world go round because so many cultures have some kind of stuffed food: knishes, empanadas, tortellini, manti and on and on and on." Li's culinary roots go back to the China Garden Restaurant that her grandparents ran in White Plains, New York, from the 1950s to the '70s. It was renowned for what was then considered exotic delicacies and for its elegant Gourmet Room that featured the kind of cuisine served in aristocratic Chinese households. China Garden closed before Li was born, but Li and her siblings seem to have inherited the same knack for food as their grandparents. Not long after Mei Mei launched, it was named Boston's Best Meals on Wheels by Boston Magazine in 2012. The success continued, with the brick-and-mortar restaurant they opened in late 2013 awarded Eater Boston's 2014 Restaurant of the Year. In 2019, the siblings published Double Awesome Chinese Food: Irresistible and Totally Achievable Recipes from Our Chinese-American Kitchen. Li's second cookbook, Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking was published in June 2023.