BELLEVUE, Wash — When self-proclaimed foodies Jen and Caleb teamed up with friends to open a new restaurant in Bellevue, they knew exactly what they wanted on the menu.
"We actually really just wanted to eat our favorite food. So it was something called Sheng Jian Bao. It's a pan-fried soup bao. And it's his favorite food growing up in Shanghai," Jen Liao said.
Business was good - until the pandemic came along and forced them to close their doors.
"When the pandemic hit, obviously things were closed. We saw a lot of demand for good food delivered to folks’ homes," said Caleb Wang.
"Our Chef Brian, he started experimenting with soup dumplings," said Jen. "And we started freezing them. We put them in Ziploc bags and brown paper bags, and then dropped them off at people's homes."
But even after the pandemic let up, orders for their dumplings didn't.
"After the economy reopened and restaurants reopened, people were still repeating and ordering from us. So that's what we discover is there is demand out there, which is not fulfilled, which is really high-quality Chinese food," Caleb said.
To fill that demand, Jen and Caleb re-branded their business to, MiLa with frozen soup dumplings at the center of the table.
"I love seeing their reaction over and over again, where everybody's like, 'it's frozen soup dumplings, I mean, How good can it be?' And they go, 'Whoa, this is amazing.,'" Jen said.
What was once produced only out of their restaurant kitchen, is now made 22 hours a day in their production facility in Auburn.
"There's essentially almost like an encasing machine that goes through. This machine, we're working with a partner in Taiwan to make it to our specs. It can spit out about 6,000 dumplings per hour," Caleb said.
"It's a very unique item where people know it’s a gourmet item that's very difficult to replicate at home, and do it well," said Jen. "And for us, our threshold and bar was chef-crafted restaurant quality food that was as good as what was coming out of our restaurant."
To generate even more buzz, MiLa teamed up with MARVEL star Semu Lui to be the company's spokesperson
"We found somebody, who found somebody, who found somebody who knew him. And so then we were able to ship a package to him and his family. And actually, his parents had received the package, and they ate all of the soup dumplings before he came back. And they told him, Yes, this has our stamp of approval. And he's like, Well, if my parents approve, then this must be good," Jen said.
A good product with a super-hero pitch man - Jen and Caleb’s pandemic pivot to MiLa has saved the day for dumpling lovers everywhere.
"Everyone's working so hard and passionately to do this and that's so rewarding to see," said Jen.
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