Meet the Double Awesome — two eggs, Cabot cheddar cheese and local greens pesto sandwiched not between slices of bread, but within a scallion pancake. This signature dish at Mei Mei captures the inventive cuisine of the local farm-focused, woman-owned dumpling business.  

“The food at Mei Mei is really a kind of expression of who we are,” said Irene Li, co-founder of Mei Mei and Prepshift, a restaurant technology startup. “Layering all of the local products that we use on top of [Chinese and Chinese American food] results in something pretty unusual in the realm of Chinese or Asian food.” 

Li said the food at Mei Mei combines both Chinese and non-Chinese influences. It’s not meant to be “traditional” or “authentic” to a specific cuisine but rather pays homage to her childhood and identity growing up in Boston. 

“It’s the kind of food we ate growing up. We have scallion pancakes? Obviously we’re gonna make a grilled cheese sandwich out of it. Like no, my grandma would not have made that,” Li said. 

However, this personal take on Chinese American food that Li and her two older siblings developed for Mei Mei proved to be a hit. Along with Andrew and Margeret Li, Irene Li launched Mei Mei as a food truck in 2012, spending their first day on the road on Northeastern’s campus, she said. Soon after, they were awarded Boston’s Best Meals on Wheels. 

“Certainly, people responded to the Chinese mashup of our food, but also to something that was farm-to-table that wasn’t a fancy steakhouse meal,” Irene Li said. “I think that was one of the other ways we set ourselves apart and developed a pretty enthusiastic fanbase early on.”

In June 2013, the Mei Mei team launched a Kickstarter campaign to open their brick and mortar location, raising $8,270 more than their goal of $28,000. Simplr’s Head of Community Trish Fontanilla was one of the backers of the campaign. She said she got to know the Li siblings when the food truck stopped in Seaport where she worked.

“I just thought they were super inventive. They were very friendly and awesome, and I think they made some really cool stuff out of limited resources, which was that food truck,” Fontanilla said. 

The Mei Mei restaurant opened later that year on Park Drive near Boston University’s campus, and Li said the business only continued to grow from there. In 2015, Boston Magazine crowned Mei Mei’s dumplings the Best of Boston and The Improper Bostonian named them the best food truck in 2017.

In 2018, Irene Li made the decision to buy out her siblings and take full ownership of Mei Mei. Her passion and intense belief in the company’s values helped in the negotiations.

“I was like, ‘You guys let me steal the show on this one, so I want to continue to be the one responsible for it,’” Irene Li said. 

Even from the beginning of their restaurant journey, Irene Li credits her siblings for their trust and belief in their much younger sister — “mei mei” is Chinese for little sister, a name Margaret Li and Irene Li “strong-armed” their brother into picking for the business.

“No sane business owner ever would have let me do what they let me do. I am really, really grateful to them because they gave me that incredible opportunity,” Irene Li said. 

At that time, Irene Li was also transitioning Mei Mei to open book management, giving the entire staff full access into the financials of the business. She was trying to figure out how to be a better employer “because restaurant jobs are really hard and don’t pay that well.” Irene Li said Mei Mei had always attracted employees who wanted to be small business owners themselves, and she wanted to provide training and guidance that employees could take wherever they went. 

“The idea that they would emerge from Mei Mei actually knowing some things about, like, how a restaurant’s financial work was really exciting to me and ended up helping us attract even more incredible staff,” Irene Li said. 

This transparency extended beyond just Mei Mei’s staff — Irene Li published their financials online, and this struck a chord with customers like local freelance food writer Jacqueline Cain. Cain, a Mei Mei fan who is almost never without their dumplings in her freezer, recalls watching Mei Mei’s evolution as a business and Irene Li’s role as a leader.

“Seeing Mei Mei already be thinking about ways to change the system well before the pandemic disrupted everything has been really interesting to watch and something that kept me interested in watching them,” Cain said. “It always has been Irene leading the change of what a restaurant could be and what a restaurant represents and how it coexists in its community.”

During the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak in Boston, Mei Mei closed its restaurant doors even before the state’s mandates, pivoting to serve as a food pantry throughout the pandemic while offering Zoom dumpling making classes and bringing dumplings to sell at local farmer’s markets. Irene Li said that they sold out over and over, and the restaurant will be expanding its production capacity with a new dumpling factory slated to open in South Boston. 

The new location will have a dining room and classroom space, and Irene Li hopes to capture the original location’s “hometown” feeling, one that serves as a “crossroads of so many different communities” where everyone has a personal connection to being there. 

“I feel like people that go to Mei Mei are good people,” Fontanilla said. 

Fontanilla attended an in-person dumpling class Mei Mei hosted at Lamplighter Brewing Co. in Cambridge on Feb. 24 where Irene Li taught the class both traditional and non-traditional ways to wrap dumplings.

“I think it’s very cool how hands on she is. Irene doesn’t need to be doing the dumpling classes, but she’s such an amazing storyteller and it was very cool to hear the storytelling piece,” Fontanilla said. 

Irene Li points to the hard work of people in the restaurant industry as a big source of inspiration.

“Part of why I want to ensure a sustainable future for the industry is because if I retire one day and there’s nothing cool to eat, I’m gonna be really pissed,” Irene Li said. 

As a recipient of this year’s James Beard Leadership Award, a prestigious recognition for the visionaries working to change the status quo of the food system, Irene Li is well on her way to doing just that. 

“[The award] represents a turning point for our business in a lot of ways. My work is less about being a chef or a restaurant and more about trying to be a part of the community and trying to support all different groups of people and to tie people’s resources together,” Irene Li said. 

As the business continues to evolve, the dumplings won’t be going anywhere. Irene Li recently purchased a machine from Taiwan that seals the dumplings, which are then finished by hand — sometimes by Irene Li, but mostly by her team that’s trained to operate the machinery. 

Fontanilla said she can’t pick her favorite flavor, saying “I think it’s giving me an out if I say dumplings because there’s so many different kinds.” Meanwhile, Cain said she enjoys the pork and lemongrass dumplings.

And Irene Li’s favorite? The cheddar scallion potato dumplings.

“They’re basically like a pierogi. Being from Brookline, lots of Polish and Jewish starch wrapped potato treats were part of my childhood,” Irene Li said. “I don’t think I could live without those.”