It was relatively easy for Xi Nuan Zheng to flip the menu of Denver’s Okinawa Japanese Cuisine into one full of Chinese dim sum dishes.
It was harder for his older brother, Xi Yong Zheng, who opened the sushi restaurant more than 15 years ago on Colfax Avenue and turned it into a reliable City Park neighborhood eatery, Xi Nuan said earlier this month. After all, 15 years is a long time to run a restaurant and to become attached to it.
But Xi Nuan, who has worked at towering, multilevel restaurants in China and Singapore, moved to Denver with the specific purpose of running the business under its new name and theme, Ma’s Kitchen Dim Sum & Bar. Now open at 2301 E. Colfax Ave., its branding matches that of Ma’s Kitchen Next Door, which the Zheng brothers opened last year in an adjacent property that was formerly home to Tacos Tequila Whiskey.
The brothers felt that there were too many sushi restaurants along Colfax and in the surrounding areas, so Ma’s Kitchen is their concerted move away from that, said Alan Cheng, the former sushi chef at Okinawa and now the manager of both Ma’s restaurants.
Their rebranding off Colfax and addition of multicolored dumplings last summer was well-received, said Xi Nuan, as interpreted from Mandarin by Cheng. “When we first opened it, we didn’t think it would have so much support from the community,” he said.
Originally titled Ma’s Kitchen Dumplings & Noodles, Ma’s Kitchen Next Door was one of 32 restaurants included in the Denver Post’s ongoing poll asking readers about their favorite dumpling places in the city.
Cheng, 30, said their menu consists of “newer dishes that both generations can eat,” referring to young adults on a night out and customers looking for dinner.
On one side of the menu are appetizers, dim sum plates and dumplings. A $19 dim sum combination comes with pork shu mai, shrimp and shrimp, pork and scallion dumplings, plus steamed pork and twice-cooked pork buns. The dumpling specials, which also include beef dumplings and shrimp and kelp dumplings, come in six and range from $12 to $14.
On the other side are soup dumplings and stuffed buns served in steamed boxes. The twice-cooked pork buns ($12) have a delicately pinched pleat, while the soup dumplings (a six-piece sampler is $19) come in shades of yellow, orange, green and purple, their dough colored with ingredients such as beet and orange juice, Cheng said.
Ma’s Kitchen also prepares rice and noodle dishes and entrees, including an $18 braised beef brisket noodle soup and Singapore butter soft shell crab for $26.
Okinawa Japanese Cuisine closed in December and returned with a new paint job, flooring and ceiling, Cheng said. The flavor, he said, is all Xi Nuan’s doing.
Street construction on Colfax for a bus transit project expected to wrap up next year has diverted pedestrians and obstructed parking, Xi Nuan said. Cheng said there are other customers who will show up undeterred.
Though Xi Nuan’s older brother, Xi Yong, found it tougher to transition away from the Okinawa name on Colfax, he’s not saying goodbye to it. He operates Okinawa sushi restaurants in Golden and in Denver’s Berkeley neighborhood.
