Today we’d like to introduce you to Mei Li.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Mei. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
“Mei mei” (pronounced may-may) means little sister in Chinese. When my brother Andy came up with the idea of starting a food truck in 2011, he named it after his two mei meis. That’s me, the middle sis, Margaret (my nickname is also Mei!) and our little sister Irene.
We three siblings have always loved food in all aspects – cooking, eating, experimenting, exploring, enjoying around a massive banquet table with all our cousins and aunties and uncles and friends. We started our food truck, Mei Mei Street Kitchen, in order to share our passion for food and bring together the power of our diverse experiences like Voltron to create something new and exciting. We’ve taken food we have eaten and loved as children in the past, added modern elements and experiences of the present, and also incorporated practices that fit with our vision of how to do business for a sustainable future.
Now, over 5 years later, we are a sibling-run food truck, restaurant, shipping container and sauce company serving up creative Chinese-American cuisine made from locally sourced and sustainable ingredients. We pride ourselves on serving humanely raised meat, produce from small farms, and some of the most creatively delicious street food out there. Our food truck opened in April 2012 and was awarded Boston’s Best Meal on Wheels soon after. Our restaurant, named Eater Boston’s Restaurant of the Year, opened in November 2013 and serves up casual truck-style lunch and creative and contemporary table service dinner. Our shipping container, known as Mei Mei by Design, serves delicious and healthy bowls combining local grains, greens and more. Lastly, our sauce company, Pantry by Mei Mei, bottles up the vibrant flavors that characterize our food so you can bring them home to your own kitchen.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Like all small businesses, it’s been a road full of challenges and surprises, rewarding times and tough times. We loved running just a food truck here in Boston, but rapidly outgrew our kitchen prep space. Some people don’t know that food trucks are required to operate out of licensed professional kitchens, which are both hard to find and expensive. We were having trouble getting enough space to prep all the food we wanted to make, which is why we started looking for a space for our own restaurant so soon after opening our food truck.
That whole process also took months longer than we anticipated and, like so many big construction projects, came with its own set of issues. But finally, almost exactly a year and a half after opening the food truck, we finally had our own restaurant.
Please tell us about Mei Mei.
The menus at our food truck, shipping container and restaurant feature an ever-changing rotation of dishes based on what’s in season, what’s available from our local farmers, and what’s striking our fancy these days.
At our three Boston locations, we serve only pasture-raised, humanely slaughtered meat, sourced within about 250 miles of Boston. We love meat (and do a lot of our own butchering!) and want you to know that you are always getting great quality meat from antibiotic- and hormone-free, ethically raised animals. We only serve sustainably caught or raised seafood and our fruits and vegetables are all grown in the Northeast.
Many of our dishes start with an idea of a Chinese dish or maybe even a memory of something we ate when growing up in a Boston-based Chinese-American family. That’s where our pork dumplings and scallion pancake dishes come from – but we veer off course to add sharp Hunter’s cheddar or local greens pesto, something you’d never see in a traditional Chinese dish.
Other dishes are inspired by beautiful produce from our farmers. We love working with local people like Allandale Farm, City Growers, The Food Project and more. We’re proud to be a part of the local food system and are always working hard to help our food community grow and thrive together.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
One of the first big meals I ever cooked with my sister was an eight-course all-bacon Thanksgiving. Everything from bacon mashed potatoes to creamed spinach with bacon to a bacon-wrapped turkey!
Contact Info:
- Address: Mei Mei (our restaurant)
506 Park Drive
Boston MA 02215Mei Mei Street Kitchen (our food truck)
The streets of Boston
Mei Mei by Design (our shipping container)
23 Drydock Ave at the Innovation & Design Building in the Seaport - Website: www.meimeiboston.com
- Phone: 857-250-4959
- Email: hello@meimeiboston.com
- Instagram: @meimeiboston
- Facebook: facebook.com/meimeiboston
- Twitter: @meimeiboston
- Yelp: Mei Mei Street Kitchen
Image Credit:
Mei Li
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