NAZARETH, Pa. — Married couple Kerri McCarthy and Vasa Li met in China and now drive together to work in Nazareth every day.
Li drops McCarthy off at Dragonfly Montessori School, the pre-elementary school they both own and where one of their sons currently attends, and then walks five minutes down South Main Street to their soon-to-be-opened dumpling shop.
After years of planning, Angry Dumpling at 140 S. Main St. is tentatively set to open this Saturday.
The location will serve authentic, hand-made Chinese dumplings that can be eaten in dine-in and take-out formats or purchased frozen to be reheated at home.
From online to brick-and-mortar
Li, who primarily speaks Mandarin, said the shop’s namesake refers more to resilience than rage.
“We want to make food, make people happy,” he said. “We are not angry people, we are happy people, we have a happy life, I have a happy family… angry to me is don’t give up on people.”
Li said the name and the shop itself were inspired by the difficulty the couple experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Lehigh Valley native, McCarthy moved to Beijing, China, to teach English after graduating from Rutgers University. There, she met Li and in 2014 the couple started an English-immersion Montessori preschool, an education style focused on student-directed activities and learning, in Li’s hometown of Jinan, China.
After running the school for around six years and having their first child, the couple had planned to raise their family in China. However, plans drastically changed when they visited McCarthy’s family in America for Christmas.
“You have a chance to change your life, you have a chance to rebuild your life. Don’t give up.”Vasa Li, co-owner of Angry Dumpling
While visiting, they heard about COVID-19 beginning to spread in China and, since McCarthy was pregnant, they decided to stay in America until it calmed down. After pushing their return date back for months, U.S. lockdowns were enacted and kept the couple from returning home.
“We were kind of trapped in the U.S. and our business was in China, so we were kind of scrambling and we were like ‘What can we do here while we’re going to be here for months on end?” McCarthy said.
To keep themselves busy and create a source of income, Li created the original Angry Dumpling, making frozen dumplings that he sold through social media online orders.
As popularity increased, the couple rented a commercial kitchen in Easton to fulfill orders. Li was in charge of preparing and packaging the dumplings, and, even at 9 months pregnant, McCarthy ran deliveries.
While running the online business, Li began to dream of one day opening a physical location.
“We started the business and a lot of people helped us, so our story shows everybody, don’t give up,” Li said. “You have a chance to change your life, you have a chance to rebuild your life. Don’t give up.”
After trying to run their China-based school virtually with a 12-hour time difference, McCarthy and Li were eventually forced to close and accept their relocation to the United States. Four years ago they opened another Montessori school in Nazareth and put the online version of Angry Dumpling on pause.
Connecting culture to cuisine
Li said he has wanted to return to the dumpling business since the online Angry Dumpling’s closing.
McCarthy said for Li, selling dumplings was not just a hobby but a way to connect with his home country and the culture he was forced to leave.
“In China, food is a really big cultural thing, so every time his family gets together they all make dumplings…” she said. “He’s homesick too. There’s not a lot of Chinese people around here who he knows. So he’s doing it as a way to share his culture. He really enjoys it.”
McCarthy said many of the traditional options at Angry Dumpling, such as beef and onion or pork and onion dumplings, are family recipes that Li has tweaked over the years. However, the store will also offer flavor options such as buffalo chicken or apple pie dumplings.
“Dumpling, in China, is a family dish... This is a family culture of China.”Vasa Li, co-owner of Angry Dumpling
For Li, dumplings are a way to connect American and Chinese cultures through food. He said making dumplings has connected him with many new friends and members of the community, for which he is extremely grateful.
“Dumpling, in China, is a family dish,” he said. “So everyone sits down together, makes dumpling, talks to each other, everybody eats dumplings. This is a family culture of China.”
Starting out small
McCarthy said that while she is excited, opening Angry Dumpling’s physical location is a bit nerve-wracking. She said it is crucial to her and Li that they balance the new business with their school and ensure that they are not compromising time with their children.
She said Angry Dumpling will start out slow. The shop will be open for lunch on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and some weekends while they get the hang of things.
“We’re going to start small and see how much we can handle…” she said. “Depending on how it goes, we might open more for dinner.”
McCarthy said opening a business in America is extremely different than doing so in China.
“Over there there’s a lot of regulations, it’s really hard, it’s really unclear, you have to go through all different parts of the government, you have to give presents, it's just different,” she said. “But over here it's really straightforward.”
She said the attitudes of others towards Angry Dumpling is also different in America than what she would expect in China.
"Everyone has just been nice. Even our food inspectors, they come in and want us to be open."Kerri McCarthy, co-owner of Angry Dumpling
“Over there there’s just a lot of people, it’s a lot of competition,” she said. "Like if you're opening a small business, other small businesses are not going to help you because you’re their competition. Whereas, here, it’s very different.
"We had a lot of help from other restaurants, they gave us tips or introduced themselves, one of our friends let us use their restaurant space. It’s just been different than China where we lived for so long… Everyone has just been nice. Even our food inspectors, they come in and want us to be open. They’ve been really helpful.”
The couple both said they are extremely grateful for the help they have received.
When Angry Dumpling opens, McCarthy said Li will be the restaurant’s only employee while she keeps her main focus on the school. She said they hope to hire another employee based on community demand.
