How Nom Wah Tea Parlor Keeps Old Chinatown Old

(fun dance music)

Dim sum falls under the Cantonese umbrella in dining.

But dim sum also means a touch of heart.

All these little small plates

are made with a lot of love and care.

All of our dim sum chefs in the kitchen

spend decades learning how to make this stuff,

learning how to hand-make the skin, hand-pleat the folds.

And it's got thousands of years of history.

My name is Wilson Tang.

We are sitting at Nom Wah Tea Parlor

in Chinatown, New York City.

Nom Wah has been open since the 20's,

and it has been a hub for the Chinese community

in Chinatown throughout the decades.

My Uncle Wally started off as a dishwasher

and slowly moved up to owning the place in 1974.

My dad tried to keep me as far away

from the restaurant as possible.

He wanted me to go to school,

and get my degree, and get a white-collar job,

because that was, to him, the American dream.

My first job out of college was at Morgan Stanley.

It was at 2 World Trade Center.

My office was on the 74th floor.

And I would badge in, you know,

get to my desk, turn on my computer.

And that's when I saw, like, alotta paper flying outside

through the corner of my eye.

It was basically oh hey,

there's a fire in the other building.

We should evacuate for safety.

By the time I got down, and this

is within minutes, 'cause it's so chaotic.

I think it's just inate in me to walk here.

You know, I've been doin' it practically all my life.

You know, walk to Chinatown or go to Chinatown.

And whatever news is out there, I'm gonna go,

and let them know I'm okay, and just keep walking.

After that, I kept saying to myself

I can't, I need a change in career or something.

And I asked my dad for advice.

And he always said to me You're from a family

of entrepreneurs, so you should open

a coffee shop and, like, a bakery.

We opened the cafe on Allen Street

in a storefront of my dad's building.

I did that for four years, and I loved it.

I loved the hard work.

And I think that stemmed from just growing up as a kid

and just always working with my dad.

In the summer of 2010, my uncle calls me.

And he's like Hey, let's go have dim sum!

I'm like okay, that's weird.

Um, sure, where do you wanna go?

Oh, let's go and meet at Red Egg.

And Red Egg is this kind of modern-looking dim sum place.

And he goes to me I think I gotta unload

the Tea Parlor, and to just pass it on.

And, you know, we can make it look like this if you want.

I'm like That wouldn't be cool.

The Tea Parlor has this unique look.

It's never changed.

I felt like this was my chance

to kind of reserve a piece of New York History.

When we relaunched, it brought back alotta old timers.

At one point, I met four generations of a family;

son, grandson, great-grandson all at one table.

Chinatown is almost, it's one of the last places

in Manhattan that hasn't been redeveloped.

And I thought I would have my opportunity

to kinda just slow New York down a little bit

and keep this place the way it is.

My chef here has been working with my family,

with my Uncle Wally, since the 80's,

and I'm really grateful that there's this long history.

I hope to see it go a lot longer.

(shriek) (murmuring)

[Woman] Is that shooting? (bang)

[Woman] Whoa! (giggling)