The dumpling gang

But, "I'm like, you haven't even had our dumplings yet! It's so much pressure."

Chela is worried more about logistics than whether customers will like what they eat.

"Everything tastes good," she says matter-of-factly.

"Our product is definitely tasty. The issue is cooking on the truck and having a fluid process."

She and partners Yin Song, Ali Safavi and Nate Adams hope to have all the kinks worked out by the time they make their debut in Durham some time next week, exact date and location to be determined. (The top secret "Dumpling Raid" held Wednesday night at Fullsteam was more a soft opening than a debut.)

Chela, who has one Chinese parent and has lived in the country off and on over the years, just loves making dumplings.

It was Yin who decided it might make a good business model, and Ali was enlisted to drive the business side of things.

Nate, who works at City Beverage, was brought on to make the sweet and savory sauces to accompany the dumplings, which will be filled with a variety of meats or veggies.

"It's a really cool team because we all bring things to the table," Chela says.

"Yin is the engineer, the operations man. Ali is the business mind. I'm more on the creative side doing the recipes marketing. And Nate is my sauce master."

Chela notes that traditional dumplings are served with a side of black rice vinegar, "but that won't fly around here. People want their sticky, sweet sauce. So nate has come up with really tasty sauces, like this excellent curry pineapple."

She adds, though, that dumplings "still will be served with vinegar, just to make me happy."

The truck will make the rounds in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area as well, but all four partners agreed that the debut should happen in the Bull City.

"That's where the food truck revolution is," Chela says. "We don't want to make our Durhamites mad."