Frozen Dumpling Company That Sells at Erewhon and 99 Ranch Opens an Orange County Restaurant

Southern California-based frozen food company Cali Dumpling will open a fast-casual restaurant of the same name in Old Towne Orange on July 1. Located in the former Jackson’s Chicken space, it’ll serve crispy dumplings along with wok-fried noodles, Indonesian-style fried rice, and roasted vegetables, nodding to Southern California’s food culture melting pot. The dumplings come covered with sauces melding flavors from the Mediterranean, Mexico, Korea, China’s Sichuan province, and more.

The restaurant’s organic dumplings are made at Cali Dumpling’s production facility in South El Monte, which was formerly owned by Mama Lu’s Dumpling House Restaurants. Cali Dumpling now produces and supplies dumplings back to Mama Lu’s and other restaurants, such as Capital Noodle Bar.

In March 2020, Allan and Candace Tea founded Cali Dumpling during the pandemic as a way to keep their staff of 15 employed. A few years later, the Teas had a daughter, which prompted them to tweak the recipe and use only organic ingredients. “We care about everything that our daughter eats, so we cleaned up our pantry. Everything in our fridge and our freezer — it’s all organic,” he says.

In addition to Cali Dumpling, the couple owns Hello Kitty Grand Cafe and dim sum restaurant Capital Seafood, located at Irvine Spectrum Center. Since starting the dumpling business, they’ve increased their staff to over 50 and began distributing to local grocery stores Erewhon and 99 Ranch.

This Orange County location is Cali Dumpling’s pilot store, but the couple hope to open more in the future (they’re looking at somewhere in Pasadena next). Dumplings arrive daily from the South El Monte kitchen, but everything else is made from scratch on the premises. The kitchen features five commercial electric gyoza griddles imported from Japan that can each cook 24 dumplings at a time. “That means 125 dumplings every 10 minutes,” says Allan Tea.

To head the kitchen, Tea recruited Stefanus Susanto, who was previously an executive chef at Wolfgang Puck Catering and Tender Greens. Susanto helped Tender Greens grow from three to 30 locations and oversaw catering at the Oscars this year before joining Cali Dumpling.

At Cali Dumpling, diners choose from four kinds of potstickers: pork, chicken, vegetable, and shrimp. They’re pan-fried before they get covered in various sauces, such as tangy tikka with San Marzano tomatoes, creamy yogurt, pickled onions, and cucumbers. The spicy Sicilian marinara sauce with pepperoni, melted mozzarella, and parmesan crisps makes the dumplings taste like pizza bites. Tea thinks the mole with roasted chiles, cocoa, and fresh cilantro will surprise people, since the sauce isn’t too sweet. Then there’s Cali Dumpling’s sweet Sichuan sauce that Tea also helped develop, introducing a tingling sensation from aromatic peppercorns.

Instead of trying to cook all the dumplings in different ways, Tea wanted to make things efficient by only offering fried potstickers. “We found that in order for the sauces to work well and really stand out, the dumplings should be crispy. Like a French fry dunking it in aioli, ketchup, or sweet honey mustard,” he says. “The crunchy texture allows the sauces to adhere to the dumpling in a way that a boiled or steamed dumpling just wouldn’t allow.”

To encourage more party-friendly takeout, Tea and Susanto developed Cali Dumpling’s family pack, served in branded pizza boxes, which includes 20 potstickers, two or three dipping sauces, and two side dishes. Think chips and dip, but with more protein.

Susanto, who also worked at Panda Restaurant Group, helped formulate the wok-fried egg noodles. “Everyone loves Panda Express’s chow mein. But how do you make it better? How do you improve on it? The first thing is removing anything artificial,” says Tea. A partner developed a special noodle for Cali Dumpling using organic turmeric as a dye instead of the more common yellow no. 5 food coloring.

Sides include house salads with green goddess dressing, an orange sesame salad, and kid-friendly options like French fries. Crispy arancini balls encasing creamy risotto speckled with sweet corn are served with a Sichuan-style dipping sauce. Roasted vegetables such as glazed breakfast radishes and asparagus spears round out the menu.

The restaurant’s whimsical illustrations were created by Cali Dumpling’s marketing team. But one wall features a collection of murals curated by Atlas, who also painted the exterior of Cali Dumpling’s South El Monte headquarters. Tea hopes Old Towne Orange residents, college students (Chapman University is within walking distance), and families with young children who visit the historic circle will all become regulars.

“It’s extremely family-friendly, which is more important to me than ever. You get in, get your dumplings within five to 10 minutes, eat, and get out the door,” says Tea.

Cali Dumpling is located at 149 N. Glassell Street, Orange, CA, 92866, and opens July 1 with free swag and giveaways that will be announced on Instagram.

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