From law school to lo mein: Ted Woo launches Mimi's Chūka Diner in Somerville

Boston Globe

25-02-2025

My first job ever was washing dishes at my uncle's restaurant. It was a way to keep me [busy] when I visited my family in Japan during the summertime. I'm originally from the West Coast, from the San Francisco Bay Area, and my mom's family lives in Japan. I'm mostly Chinese, although there's a little bit of Japanese heritage on my mom's side. My uncle actually owns Chinese restaurants over there now; my cousin runs them. Food's always been a big part of that side of the family.
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But then you went to law school at BU. What drew you back into restaurants?
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It was your typical story of needing to do the 'right' thing and choosing a more professional career path. My friends from law school knew that I loved food and restaurants. Long story short, a friend of a friend from law school wanted to open up a fast-casual concept in New York City and [put us in touch]. I made plans to partner with them in the future. To get experience — because I didn't have any experience managing restaurants, other than serving and washing dishes — I got a job with the Barbara Lynch Gruppo as a very junior manager at B&G Oysters.
I was working for the chief justice of Massachusetts Land Court at the time. Toward the end of my term, I started to apply for clerkships elsewhere — but, when I was approached about the fast-casual concept, it swirled into my leaving the law.
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The fast-casual plans fell through, but I was already working for the Barbara Lynch Gruppo. I dove deeper into working my way up, and that's where I met my business partner, Jon.
Barbara Lynch: What was that like? There's been a lot written about her.
There certainly has. I mean, honestly, it went amazingly at B&G. It was kind of unique because it was really busy and a pretty dynamic place already when I got there. All we really had to do was either sustain or grow what was going on there. We had a lot of autonomy. As a junior manager, I was pretty hungry to do a lot. I grew quickly there and became the general manager after about two years.
Jon and I helped to resurrect the Oyster Invitational, a block party in the South End with about 350 people and 20 different restaurant vendors. We did a Halloween Haunted House fund-raiser on the patio at B&G. Our staff at the time was just so good — both back and front of house — and they all got along amazingly. For us, it was a golden age of … doing fun things at work that were just beyond food and cooking, and really more about the community.
Let's talk about Mimi's. How did that start?
Our first pop-ups were in January and February 2020 at Stir in the South Ed. We're all pretty familiar with what happened after that. The pandemic hit, I got furloughed, and it's now April or May.
One of my fatal flaws is not being able to sit still. The unemployment checks were enough to live on. We were like: 'Why don't we pour this energy into something?' So we started folding dumplings by hand, freezing them, and delivering them around metro Boston. That summer was a pretty good time for us, in terms of getting some attention from the press and getting our dumplings in the hands of a lot of people in the South End. We did that, chugged through until restaurants finally reopened, and then we started doing pop-ups again.
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Who's Mimi?
Mimi is my mom's name, actually. I don't recall exactly how we landed on it. We both agreed that it's a nice-sounding name. It sounds like a warm person.
How did you land a permanent home at Aeronaut?
During that pop-up period, I was basically taking any opportunity we were offered to get exposure in different neighborhoods. We were popping up everywhere. We would put together something that was essentially 90 percent prepped, write some fun instructions and how to cook it, basically like those Blue Apron boxes. We did that with Aeronaut a couple times, and I had a connection with one of the owners.
We were the food partners at Artifact Cider Project, and we had about 180 square feet of kitchen space, including storage and one little convection oven, where we were pushing out as much food as we could. Unfortunately, Artifact closed in May 2023. That was one month after we learned of the Aeronaut space opening through a chef friend of ours — it was a little bit of insider info through an industry connection and then basically cold-calling them before the space went on the market.
For the uninitiated, what's the concept of chūka?
The way I like to analogize it is basically: Chinese food is adapted to whatever locality it gets brought to. In New England, there are some pretty staunch supporters of New England-style Chinese food: lobster sauce and crab rangoons, and certain things that are a lot more popular here than, for example, on the West Coast — dinner rolls and chicken fingers at a Chinese restaurant, which I had never heard of coming over here.
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Chūka is Japanese-adapted Chinese food. There's not a lot of spicy food in Japanese cuisine. And so certain dishes that had Sichuan origins were mellowed out and not as spicy, not as numbing, a little sweeter, using Japanese ingredients like mirin or miso. It's still evolving. It's probably one of the more popular, if not the most popular, casual cuisine in Japan.
Where do you like to eat when you're not working?
That depends on the occasion. If it's something quick, Tsurumen in Davis Square. It's fantastic. For a fancy occasion, I love Pammy's. Everything's great: the food, the cocktail program, the ambiance. It's so cozy and warm and inviting inside, especially with the fireplace right in the middle. I always try to sit at the a bar whenever I go.
How would you describe the food scene here versus the West Coast?
The food scene here right now is really exciting because there's a lot of growth. There's a lot of previously — I don't know if untapped is the right word — but definitely previously unexplored cuisines that are popping up and getting a lot of recognition. I feel like Thai food in the Boston area is having a huge boom, and more regional Chinese cuisines, as well as more specific Japanese cuisines and Greek food, too. A ton of new Greek restaurants have opened, and they're not just gyros.
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Working at B&G, we had a nice early introduction to Kava; they were really friendly and would come to B&G a lot. I haven't tried it yet, but Kaia over in the South End looks beautiful inside. I love large-format foods, so whole fish and stuff like that. It's exciting.
I feel like there was a time just before the pandemic when every single restaurant that was opening was either tacos, a steakhouse, seafood, or pasta. And I love all those foods, but there's definitely more than that.
Would you ever encourage anyone to go to law school?
Anyone? Yes. Everyone? No. Everybody's personal journey is very different. If you're going to go to law school because you think it's a good paycheck, absolutely not. I don't recommend going to law school.
Law school's expensive. And then you went into restaurants. Was that a financial conundrum?
I mean, I still owe a lot of money to my law school loan servicers. But, at the end of the day, my debt is just a responsibility that I have to fulfill. It's not the end of the world. I feel blessed that I found something that I love to do and that I can do it well enough to make a living. My thoughts were, if I'm going to work hard doing something for however many years, then I should do something I love. Not everybody gets to do that.
Last but not least: What's your favorite snack?
There's a reason why French fries are on our menu. I like McDonald's fries. I like Red Robin's fries. I like seasoned curlies; I like waffle-cut fries. Craigie on Main's fries were amazing. I never get tired of fries.
Interview was edited and condensed.
Kara Baskin can be reached at