Adam Torres and Jo Situ Allen discuss MO MI MEI.
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
Where can you get delicious Cantonese food in Costa Mesa? In this episode, Adam Torres and Jo Situ Allen, Co-Founder, Artist, Creative Director and Chef at MO MI MEI, explore Jo’s journey as a Chef and the opening of MO MI MEI.
About Jo Situ Allen
Jo Situ Allen is a California artist known for her dreamy and high vibrational multimedia works. Also known as DIRTY ERASER – her paintings transport the viewer into the energetics of the natural world.Jo’s offerings are guided by her intuitive sense of social and ecological harmony – informed by her BA/Master’s Degree in Geography/Environmental Studies/Sustainable Management and as a published author of two books on California’s native species.
She is sought out for her work as a visual dreamer, live art performer, muralist, creative director, brand strategist, and storyteller – merging the worlds of science, spirit, and art.
About MO MI MEI
Their team makes magic! Sumter and his wife Chi-Lin came up with the idea of a Chinese restaurant where the food was both fresh and delicious – a place where you left feeling great! They called their friend Jo – a culinary artist who creates dishes inspired by her Chinese roots while celebrating California’s produce. Realizing that they had something special and were ready to build a brand – they invited Stu to join in this creative adventure.
Together they dreamed up MO•MI•MEI – a Cantonese street food concept specializing in ‘Gua Cheung Fun’ – steamed rice rolls. Their founders are driven by a passion for building community and creating love-driven hospitality experiences.
This is the kind of food they want to eat. This is the kind of food they want to share with you.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today’s guest is Jo Situ Allen, and she is co founder, artist, creative director, and chef over at Mo Mi Mei.
Jo, welcome to the show. Hi, Adam. Thank you for having me. Well, Joe, great to have you on the show today and excited to get into your work over at Mo Me May. And I guess just to get us kicked off, like , where did you come up with the, concept for Mo Me May? Where’d that come from? Well, it’s really great that you asked because one of my co founders Sumpter Pendergrast from Sidecar Donuts, his wife is Taiwanese and I’m Chinese and we’ve, we’ve always said, , I wish I could eat at a Chinese food place and feel really great leaving.
Both of us, , shop local, farm works market. I don’t cook with Sumpter. feed oil, , like I like to source my proteins from really good farms and organic and, this has been bubbling for a while. And May of last year we were like, , I think it’s time. I think we have to make a place that everyone we know could eat at and feel great at fresh, healthy, delicious twist on Chinese food.
Wow. Now, did you have like a culinary background? Is this something that’s been brewing or like in you, or I know you’re a chef. Like, how did that, how’d that take place? I have been cooking for my family since I was eight years old. We immigrated to the U S when I was six and a half.
And as with , a lot of immigrant families, We moved to Chinatown LA and my parents worked all the time and it just Naturally kind of became my, my job in the house was to make food and make dinner for everyone. My first dish that I cooked at eight years old was bitter melon with beef and black bean sauce.
And food has just always been the way that I connect to my heritage as a Chinese American and the way that I feed my kids so that they know who they are. , , from taste buds wise, they know who they are in their palate. And so , when you came up with this idea of did you come from like a restaurant family too, as well, or was this the first restaurant that kind of opened your family here?
Cause that’s, that’s a whole nother thing itself and being an entrepreneur, right? Yeah, absolutely. No, I have no previous restaurant experience have never, , done professional chefing. It was more that I always cook. Wow. For my friends and my family. And I, , I just went through a big personal transformation last year and just wondered how I could serve people and how I could serve.
, my career history. I’ve had some major pivots and I was just wondering how I could serve people and everyone I knew was like, Joe, you need to feed people, , you have this energy and this life force and this passion for food and you need to just serve people and let them eat food.
And I was like, okay. And then I, I chef this 14 person dinner where I made this vegetarian six course Chinese, but super California, , like very based on traditional Chinese medicine and then super California. And the hosts were the founders of Sidecar Donuts and they said, this is what we’ve been waiting for.
You’re the brand that we’ve been waiting for. Wow. Wow. What an amazing story. And so like now you’re now, so now you’re entering the entrepreneurial space for restaurant tier for being a restaurant tour. What was that like? Because even just hearing this story, I’m all kinds of scared. Not for you, but for me, I’m like, Oh my gosh, if I was to start a restaurant, what would that look like?
Oh, don’t worry for my listeners. I will not. And I don’t cook. And I’ve talked about that before. It’s okay. We will laugh. We will let the chef do that. Like Joe what was that like opening your first restaurant? Restaurant, like, get, get into that with me. That’s I’m, I’m getting nervous just thinking about it.
Well, yeah. What they say you, it’s great that you don’t know what you don’t know. The way that I work in, in all aspects of my life is, is really open-minded and going with the flow and following my intuition, but having a very, very set kind of things to do, like list to do things every single day.
And I just keep my head down and I focus and I just do one step at a time, one step at a time, and I have a lot of capacity so I could just, mm-hmm. As long as it’s something I really care about, right? It has to really mean something to me. And if it does, it’s a source of energy for me instead of an energy drain.
It’s an energy input concept. That’s amazing. Yeah, I’m able to just that it energizes me and so I’ve been learning a lot. I I have a master’s degree in business and ecology, and I kind of joke that this is like my PhD. It is your PhD. That’s not, not a joke. And for many that didn’t get the master’s, it’s like a, , all those, it’s, it’s, it’s an education.
It’s real world, right? Yes, absolutely. And I have amazing co founders, , Sumpter and then Stuart who’s our creative powerhouse. And so I am so grateful. And then we have an amazing team of general manager and employees, and I am just learning so much, Adam, , thank goodness I can iterate. I don’t, I can’t tell you what it’s like, like in the weeds, what it’s like, like in the kitchen and running the kitchen and, , organizing all of.
It’s the process and teaching, , nine to 11 people how to make my recipes over and over and refining the recipes and the processes. It’s taken over a year from the reception to re renovation, to sourcing the vintage Chinese posters from Taiwan and , all the things that make up this huge labor of love, the way we hope to transform.
, the, the way people eat Chinese food and specifically the steamed rice rolls from my hometown, Taiping, China. Hmm. Tell me a little bit more about that , and the food. And I’m recording this nice and early in the morning in la Stay . And I know by me asking this question, ’cause I’ve already stalked your
Instagram, so mo me may, for those that are listening, it’s mo dot mi mei. When you start typing that in Instagram, it’s gonna come right up. But tell me a little bit like more into , what went into the menu. Cause I was like, just get me hungry. Cause I’m looking at these pictures and it’s too much.
Oh man, this is my favorite food in the world. I grew up above an open air market in China. And I love it because it is, to me, a very elegant and simple way of eating really good food. I ate this growing up breakfast, lunch, and dinner sometimes, or, , one of those meals at least. And I would have it just the most classic, simple way, which is one of the ways we serve it at the restaurant, is just shrimp and chives.
And a steamed rice roll is a beautiful thing. It’s literally just It’s soaked rice and water, and the rice is soaked for a long time, and it, we grind it on a marble stone mill, and it yields this most delicious, light, fragrant rice milk. It’s literally just rice and water, so there’s no fat in it, no gluten, no dairy.
And this rice milk is poured over this tray that goes into this contraption, which is basically a vat of boiling water over fire. Like the way the old school street vendors do it. It’s, it, this has been around for close to 100 years on the streets of South China. It’s very specifically a South Chinese street food.
So it’s a food trend that has been trending in New York, Vancouver, Toronto, places where there’s Chinatowns, San Gabriel Valley. But what we wanted to bring was doing this traditional steamed rice roll, which we know is so healthy, really low carb, obviously, a tiny bit of rice milk goes a very long way, and then filling it with the ingredients that we love to eat.
So I do pork from Pachamama Farms. We use organic eggs and chicken. We have really beautiful organic herbs like dill and mint and romaine and a three citrus salad for, for one of the dishes. So it’s really, I offer a traditional way of eating it, which is just the steamed rice rolls with the filling.
Usually we have like, We have pork, we have beef, we have shrimp, we have chicken, we have a vegetarian option. And then you can order it the glow up way, which is the way that chef likes to eat it basically. It’s with like shredded romaine and dill and mint and different herbs that accompany each specific dish and special house sauces that I make and our sauces and all of our cooking is done with 100 percent avocado oil, maple syrup, organic peanut butter.
So it’s just all the ingredients and foods that I personally. Want to eat and want to feel really great and the feedback is that everyone who comes in is so exciting because they love Chinese flavors and they know they’re going to leave feeling so Cozy and so loved and feeling so yummy and so great Like people feel energized after instead of Kind of that like headachy slumpy kind of feel that I sometimes feel.
Mm hmm. Yeah, How does cooking or , even your restaurant, like how does that, how does that become like a, in a creative outlet for you, like as an artist and otherwise, like, how does that bring out your creativity? Oh, so much. I always like to say my my medium is my life force. So it’s it’s playing with all the senses, right?
I mean, as an artist, it really, I love playing with pastels and watercolor and ink and oil and, , Multimedia and the same way I cook with food and actually the saying that my friends always say is, Joe, you cook like an artist, you make food like an artist, your food is artist food, , and it’s colorful, it’s interesting, it’s nuanced, it, it, it’s a way to convey all the ways that I feel about an immigrant experience and it’s another way to play with mediums to create a work of art only this time you can eat it and it’s super affordable at 12 and 14.
And what, what areas, what area are you located in? So for all the, all our Californians, you’re in California. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yes, we are in California. We are in Costa Mesa on the corner of Baker and Fairview. Costa Mesa is in Orange County. So the next county over LA and I drive back and forth from LA and Costa Mesa all the time.
It’s going to be about 50 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on time of day. , if you’re coming, let’s say Westwood to Costa Mesa. I know exactly when I’m going to try your restaurant. We do a, we do a mixer every once a month out there and I’m coming. I already got the address here.
Is this right? The one one seven zero Baker street. I think that’s it on Instagram? Yes. So I know when I’m going, I’m going when I go to, when I go to Orange County next time, for sure. This looks delicious. And again, for everybody that is listening to this Mo Me May on Instagram, .
You’ll see all the amazing dishes. And also I thought it’s pretty cool. Like talk to me about what went into the design. Like I was, I’m looking at this, the vintage posters and like it’s places, beautiful. Oh, thank you. And I also want to offer Adam that you could totally have your mixer at Momime. We’ve been lining up really fun events and it’s the kind of place at night that has such a vibe, , and it’s great to have a mixer and we have really beautiful, regenerative, organic, like drinks and like, yeah, it’s just really fun.
So, yeah, Just offering. I love it. I’m gonna get on Chirag about that one. Chirag will handle it. Yeah, exactly. I do the interviews, he does the events. We’re good. Perfect. Well, consider us definitely. In terms of the design, yes one of the images that we have always been inspired by is, well, not image so much as an artist, Barbara Kruger, who really did those Those big mixed media art pieces with bold print in red and white.
And we realized that it was actually, really hearkens to street signs in Hong Kong and Taiwan and China that you find everywhere in Southeast Asia. It’s very much like this old school Chinese, , love red and red and white look together. And it’s very much like a classic Chinese restaurant kind of signage look.
And then of course the three of us being very much into street culture, fashion, design, the world of, , fine art, pop art. Vintage art, , it kind of just really came together and, and it really represents who we are, like what we’re offering, right? We’re offering street food that is soulful and dare I say, like, a little sexy, , soulful, sexy.
A hip and it also comes so grounded and steeped in our culture and my culture and my experience as a Chinese American and a Chinese American who’s very adventurous and the food that we’re offering is that way it’s definitely a Chinese American Chinese Californian I would say very specifically Chinese Californian take and I feel like the design really reflects that and that’s definitely me.
The amazing work of Stuart Dooley, who is Dooley Creative, and he is our co founder as well. And he was able to take everything that we threw at him. , every, every, like, this is who we are. And it really came together because he’s like, all right, chef. What else are we? Go ahead. No, go ahead. I have the best co founders.
They’re always like, yes. Yes, yes to me, , and they, yes, we understand we, we support and we love this and it really came together for us. Even more so when I went to Taiwan to look for vintage Chinese posters, and on the fourth day, I was getting a little nervous, , it’s like, okay, I’m halfway around the world, eating street food and looking for vintage posters.
When am I going to find these vintage posters? They’re not as easy to find as you would think. I wouldn’t think they were actually, I’d be like, how are you ever going to find it? I know. You just walk up to people like, Hey, can I have that from your wall? I don’t like, how do you do that? I don’t know. No, it was definitely, , there was some shaky moments and luckily I had a great friend with me.
A college friend and then his friends were helping as well. And I ended up in this little shop and found over 80 vintage poster reproductions. And I goldmine then. Okay. You hit the goldmine. The goldmine. I remember meeting with Stuart and Sumter and Sumter’s wife, Chi Lin, and I laid out the posters and they were like, , it was like, it was like the sound of trumpets, ?
Yeah. And they put them up like those, , Sumter and Stuart and their families put up whole wall themselves. Hmm. Of those posters and we scan them and we, , so we have them for our for any print, , for anything. And I feel like that authenticity and that heritage really drives the design, , plus then we have really cool, , a modern take on it.
And the story of you going to get them. I just got to be frank about that one. That’s a great story. We’ve got a lot of great stories, Adam. Well, Joe, I have to say this has been so much fun having you on the show today, and I appreciate you sharing not only your, your heritage, but your love for food and why you created this one of my favorite, why you create this restaurant.
So Momime, one of my favorite things is to talk to entrepreneurs about like what, what drove them to go out there and to do something that wasn’t easy. And by all means, opening a restaurant, creating a concept, feeding people, that is not easy. It’s about as hard as it gets as far as I’m concerned it’s intense and and to get people to to , to give them your heart in that standpoint from, from the food that you love and to create dishes that are authentic to you and your heritage.
I think it’s amazing. That being said, Joe, if somebody wants to continue to learn more, follow the brand what’s the best way for them to do that? Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Adam, for such a fun interview, by the way. This is so fun. And my my restaurant’s website is momimei. com. So that’s M O M I M E I.
com. Momimei. com. And then we’re on Instagram, which is instagram. com. Momimei with the dots in between so it’s m o dot m i dot m e i. It should pop up right away. You’ll see the red and white logo and you’ll know it’s us, Momimei. Amazing. And for everybody listening just so we’ll put those links in the show notes so you can just click on the links and head right on over to the website.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, we encourage you hit the That subscribe button. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new entrepreneurs, new stories, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey.
If that sounds interesting to you, we welcome you again, hit that subscribe or follow button so that you get the notification tomorrow. Cause guess what’s coming out another episode for you. And Joe, again, thank you so much for sharing your story with me and my audience. I really appreciate it.
Thank you, Adam. Have a wonderful day.