Dumpling royalty

John Dean and Elizabeth Young, and even their 18-month-old daughter, Isabel, are proud to blaze their own trail with the food they serve and the new business model they’re using with Drunken Dumpling. Dean and Young met in 2014 while they were both working at The Wine Room in Paradise. A few years later, they met the self-proclaimed Dumpling King of the Northwestern United States over a bottle of tequila while on vacation. After hearing his story about building a successful business selling dumplings late at night out of a small walk-up window in Alaska, a light bulb went on for both Dean and Young; the idea for Drunken Dumpling was born. Dean, whose culinary background spans over 30 years of working with different types of food, is passionate about Asian fusion cuisine. After two years of planning, building their mobile kitchen and creating a rotating menu, which always includes vegan and vegetarian options, they started doing pop-ups around Chico in March and the response has been great. Now they can be seen, often with Isabel in tow, every Wednesday from 4-8 p.m. at Secret Trail Brewing Co. (132 Meyers St.), at the Thursday Night Market, Saturday nights from 7 p.m.-midnight at the Maltese (1600 Park Ave.), and at Fork in the Road at DeGarmo Park the third Friday of the month. For more information, find them on Facebook.

Can you describe your Asian fusion menu?

Dean: One of our biggest sellers is called the Barack Obama, which is a “shish baraak” dumpling where instead of having the meat and spices in a ball cooking in, like, a yogurt soup, I put the sauce inside so I could wrap it all up … and then we serve it with our house ponzu, satsuma orange slices with Thai chili flakes and Thai basil. It’s crazy because it’s Japanese ponzu sauce with a Lebanese dumpling with Thai spices and ingredients, so that’s where the fusion comes in, and it’s really good.

What kind of vegetarian options do you offer?

Currently on the menu, we have an organic vegan option called the Vegan Mary, which is marinated tofu with our Cajun sauce, vegan hoisin, roasted peanuts and cilantro. I find it’s very important to hit the vegetarian and vegan population … because there are a huge number of people that have committed to that lifestyle, and I love making that food.

What’s the new business model you’re working with?

The food trucks [in town] are all very different, which is great. It’s very diverse. And that’s what’s cool about the new business model right now—they open a place with their beer and wine or whatever and they’ve kept in mind having the trucks. What restaurant can you go to in town that will serve vastly different cuisine on a daily basis? For me, as a chef, if I had to serve something different every day, I would go insane. So that’s brilliant.

Any plans to go brick-and-mortar?

The end game is to have a brick-and-mortar. Our business model for that is going to be much more like the business model we had originally, which was late-night dumplings.