BEIJING DUMPLING HOUSE

Amy always knew she wanted to open a restaurant growing up in Guangzhou, China. She learned cooking from her mother and went to school to acquire Sichuan-style skills, in hopes it would help her get a job in America. 

While living on Chinatown's Essex Street, she got a job as a bus girl, then server, all while watching the cooks in the kitchen. Five years later, she owned her first restaurant in Manhattan for several years and then moved to New Jersey, where she raised her family and opened Red Dumpling Noodle Shop.

Ten years later, she moved back to Chinatown to look after her parents and open another restaurant. She chose Jamaica as the location because it lacked an authentic Chinese eatery: "I wanted to tell the people this food was different. That it was not General Tso's chicken."