Celebrating AAPI Heritage Month with Chef Mary Mendoza

Bantam King’s Chef Mary Mendoza.

Reflections on a Lifetime of Cooking and ‘The Doffle’ at Bantam King

By Tim Ebner, Edible DC | Photos by Veronika Sabir-Idrissi

When you walk into the brightly decorated Bantam King in Chinatown, it’s pretty much impossible to resist the scent of fried chicken wafting through the air.

While most diners gravitate toward dishes like the curry snow fried chicken or the Nashville hot chicken platter, there is also a somewhat secret (and decadent) dessert lurking on the menu, featuring the talents of Chef Mary Mendoza.

The dish to try is “The Doffle.” It's a doughnut waffle paired with Bantam King's fried chicken, then drizzled with sweet and spicy syrups, including honey, maple syrup, and housemade chili oil. A dish designed to satisfy many flavors—sweet, spicy, salty, and the all important umami.

Her waffle is really a malasada, a Portuguese-style doughnut made famous in Hawaii. The dough is pressed into a waffle maker, then deep fried.

This is the must-order dish the next time you’re visiting Bantam King. Edible DC wanted to learn more about Mendoza’s favorite dish, her Filipino heritage, and reflections on her AAPI identity within the D.C. restaurant community.

This is a chef blazing a path forward, and this month, we celebrate her leadership as part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month.

Edible DC: How would you describe your cooking style and approach to dishes at Bantam King? Do you have a favorite dish at Bantam King?

Mary Mendoza: My cooking style is a combination of necessity and creativity.

I say necessity because I push myself in cooking with what we already have in the kitchen. I want to avoid the habit of buying new produce for the sake of making new dishes. I believe in practicing sustainability by budgeting and buying things in moderation.

And creativity—I find creativity in my food by making familiar dishes with a novel or different ingredient or method. My favorite dishes to make at Bantam King are chicken and Doffle and the "Devil Made Me Do It" chocolate cake.

The way I came up with The Doffle—our housemade doughnut-waffle dough—was to answer my usual question, "How to make something familiar, but also new?"

We are a chicken restaurant, and my background is in pastry. I thought of marrying the idea of chicken and waffles and chicken and doughnuts. The dish has the mild heat of Szechuan peppercorns balanced with the sweetness of butter, maple, and honey.

My other favorite dish to make is our version of a devil's food cake, the “Devil Made Me Do It," which is made with our special, imported Hokkaido flour, as used in the ramen noodles, plus cocoa, and chicken fat.

When we make roast chicken for our ramen, I collect the rendered, sansho peppercorn-flavored chicken drippings from the pan. I reduce this and collect the fat then I incorporate it into the cake. It adds a savory component to an already decadent chocolate cake.

EDC: Does your Filipino heritage influence your cooking style? Was there someone in your life who led you on your career path to being a chef?

MM: Definitely. Food has always been a part of my life. Food is not just sustenance, but it served as a vehicle that kept my family glued together. The funny thing about food is that there would be a minor family tiff or dispute but if you put a nice, hearty chicken adobo in the middle of the dining room table, all is forgotten.

That being said, my family is heavily involved in food. My dad's parents were Chinese immigrants in the Philippines. They were bakers and made Cantonese-style egg tarts to the town's favored pan de sal. They had to adapt and curtail dishes that would suit the Filipino palate.

My mom's mom was a Filipino housekeeper and cook. Although I had a growing interest in the possibility of pursuing a culinary path while in high school, the whole family was unsupportive. They thought, specifically my father, that they worked all those hard, manual, blue-collared jobs so that I can aspire to achieve a more lucrative option.

The way I look at food with my Filipino heritage is that food is meant to tell a story. It has to make sense. It is meant to be shared. I approach food by thinking of my favorite dish which is pork sinigang. It's big. It's sweet, salty, sour, and acidic. It's balanced which is how all things in life should be.

EDC: What does Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month mean to you? Do you think the D.C. restaurant industry is supportive of AAPI leaders?

MM: I have mixed feelings towards AAPI Heritage Month, or any other celebration. It's like Christmas. Why do we need an excuse to be merry and generous for the month of December when we can be kind all year long?

Why do we as a society limit ourselves to embracing all these wonderful sociocultural differences in a month? Yet, I am also grateful for these festivities and events. I guess the best way to look at it is like someone's birthday. You value a person the entire year, but the birthday is that special day or reminder to rejoice that person.

Generally, I feel welcomed and supported by the D.C. restaurant industry. I feel lucky to be in this city. I feel acknowledged that there are opportunities for people of any race or culture to become and be part of a leadership and management position in D.C. restaurants.

The way I look at it, D.C. embraces all those lovely different cultures and makes a delicious, heart-warming stew out of all these people. The backbone of a D.C. restaurant is the varied cultures that make up both the front and back of the house.

Finally, is there anything you are doing to celebrate this month?

We don't have anything specific, but we always celebrate AAPI heritage. At Tonari, our sister restaurant, focuses on wafu-Italian dishes. Wafu means Japanese style, or a Japanese take on a subject matter.

Currently, we have a Kurobuta sausage Napolitan pasta. For dessert, try my wafu original mochi donut. It is called bucci bomboloni. I grew up eating a lot of sesame balls from chowking.

Depending on what country you are in, Chinese call them jian diu whereas the Japanese call them gomadango. Filipinos call them buchi. I changed the spelling into Italian: bucci (like Gucci).

This mochi donut is filled with red bean pastry cream. On the outside, it is rolled in tahini glaze and fried sesame seeds. It's really good!