The first Monkey King Noodle Co. started in 2013 in what used to be a taco stand in Dallas’ Deep Ellum. There were not any tables or chairs, just lines of hungry patrons wrapped around the block waiting to try Andrew Chen’s authentic Taiwanese street food, co-owner Sonali Kumar said.

“It actually started as a bet between [Chen] and his friends,” Kumar said. “The location was super inexpensive, so there wasn’t a big risk.”

Chen ran the stand himself, hand-making everything from dumplings and egg rolls to hand-pulled noodles, Kumar said.

The first full Monkey King restaurant opened in 2015 across from the old taco stand. Today, there are five Monkey King restaurants across Dallas-Fort Worth, including the Richardson location, which opened Dec. 7, 2020.

Chen was born and raised in Richardson and that, along with the city’s diverse population, made it a great market for a Monkey King Noodle Co., Kumar said.


“We handmake everything at our commissary, and then it gets sent out to all of our restaurants,” said Kumar, who joined the company in 2019 after seeing the restaurant’s plan for expansion.

“My job originally was to just partner in development and marketing,” she said. “Now I’ve probably done basically everything you can do."

Kumar said Monkey King, which was named after a popular comic series in China, is known for its simplistic flavors.

“It’s pretty authentic to what you would get in Taiwan. It isn’t Westernized,” Kumar said. “It’s meant to be heavy on the palate with those fundamental flavors of Asian cooking—sesame, ginger, garlic, scallions, those kinds of things.”


Customers can dine on a variety of noodles, stir frys, soups, dumplings and more. All of Chen’s dishes from the original location are still there, with some more unique twists such as the brisket fried rice added in to step out of the street food bubble, Kumar said.

To assist with the expansion, Andrew Dilda was made a partner and culinary director in October. Kumar said they hope to open more restaurants in DFW, Colorado and Oklahoma.

“We think those places are underserved for the kind of food we have, so we’re definitely looking at that,” she said.

Monkey King Noodle Co.


520 Lockwood Drive, Ste. 100, Richardson

469-372-1334

www.monkeykingnoodlecompany.com

Hours: Sun. and Tue.-Thu. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., closed Mon.


Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the total number of Monkey King Noodle Co. restaurants across Dallas-Fort Worth.