Jason and Vanessa Chau have opened Angry Dumplings at 1119, Suite A Sevier Avenue. The name is a take-off on the Angry Birds game that was popular a while back and is intended to convey the fun they want people to have with their food. The couple moved to Knoxville from Los Angeles following a visit in which they felt it would be a good place to live. His family has a restaurant in the Palm Springs area, China Wok and Canton Bistro. They’ve had restaurants for over twenty years. Jason had been operating both restaurants before their move.
Vanessa’s sister came to Knoxville first, hired into a management position at UT. Last December the couple visited at her invitation. She said she missed their dumplings and noodles and wanted them to consider moving here and opening a restaurant. Around the same time a friend pitched a boba tea recipe he’d developed, and things started coming together. They found the south Knoxville area through an agent and said, “This is where the dream starts.”
Jason started life as a Vietnamese refugee. His grandfather had been a Dim Sum chef in Vietnam. After the war ended, when Jason was a young boy, his family left the country around 1978 on a container boat with over 300 people. They lived in Indonesia for two years in a refugee camp until they were able to get a sponsor in the U.S. and move to Los Angeles. They lived in Crenshaw, a rough part of the city until they could move to Alhambra, known as the second Chinatown.
His brother-in-law opened a restaurant in Palm Springs and Jason began helping. He later went to UC Irvine and got a degree in criminal law. He worked in San Jose California as a data analyst then went to nursing school and became a registered nurse. “I even worked as a plumbing contractor.” The pull of the culinary world, however, proved too much. He “fell in love with Thai food, Laos food, and Chinese food.” Part of his heritage is Chinese, and he speaks Cantonese.
With a limited kitchen, the cooking happens behind the business in the food truck and the menu remains small and focused. It also fits his idea to keep things simple and not overwhelm people with a large menu. Since he has a mobile kitchen, he was able to open more quickly and cheaply. He likes the set up. They offer beef and chicken dumplings, as well as a Taiwanese beef braised noodle that takes about three-and-a-half hours to cook. He’ll rotate items to “keep things fresh.”
One dish he’s excited to introduce when the time comes a Laos dish he learned to make when he was volunteering a Laotian Temple. The “grandmoms” come and cook for the monks because the monks are forbidden to cook and must devote their time to prayer, meditation, and blessing. “I was tasting so many varieties of food. They cook a big batch; the monks would eat . . . then we ate the leftover. I fell in love with it, and I stayed, and they taught me to cook the food. That pull of food got me here. I decided to hang up my stethoscope and decided to continue this culinary journey.”
They will make their own “cane syrup sugar” for teas. “We don’t use fructose.” To get started they took a small bus which he purchased a few years ago for fun. They recently drove the bus to Queens, NY, and loaded it with supplies to get them through the first months. While he enjoyed a great and dedicated staff at the family restaurants in L.A., they started this one with only family. You’ll find the couple working there, along with his son and her daughter. “It’s a family business.” He has a couple of guys working with them through the summer.
They got their permits in time to open for SoKno Pride, but weren’t quite ready to open the store, so they pulled the truck out front for the day. “It was amazing. The people with the city and health department helped us.” Of the response, he said it was very good. “People loved our dumpling.” He explained that there are usually five ingredients in a dumpling: cabbage, meat, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and pepper. “All of our dumplings have about seventeen ingredients. When you bite into them, you can taste those flavors.” He said he added apple, for example, which you might not identify, but it adds to the complexity of the flavor profile.
Another difference in their dumplings is that they are folded only once. While he said this may not make them as attractive as the more traditional dumplings that are folded three to four times. He said that reduces the amount of meat inside and he wants to give people a larger portion of meat. “It may not be the prettiest, but when it comes to taste and volume, everyone is pleased.” He served me dumplings and I can attest to the amazing taste and ample meat inside. I also enjoyed a bit of each of the teas pictured here and they are great and very different from each other.
He also infuses his soups with a wide range of spices, some of which he can’t get locally. He and Vanessa fly to LA and get spices. He’s always on the lookout for food to enhance his menu and recently found some “dim sum quality buns.” He bought all he could and posted it on Instagram, thinking he had enough to last for several days until he could get some more. He sold out that day.
They are operating primarily off Instagram while they sort out some Facebook issues and get a website. Six days ago, when we spoke, he was very proud to have “over 700 followers.” In less than a week that number has grown to over 1500. It’s the best place to keep up with special menu items and other changes and it’s worth staying on top of because the specials sell out quickly.
The restaurant is open from 10:00 am to 10:00 pm Monday through Friday and Noon to 10:00 pm on weekends. You can grab food there and take it across the street to Alliance or they will bring it to you there. They officially opened for inside business on Father’s Day and Jason said, “We are very happy to be here and happy for the warm welcome Knoxville is showing us.”