Jimmy Huang operates two adjacent restaurant stalls in Old Oakland: Huang Cheng Potsticker and Huangcheng Noodle House, both located at Swan's Market. Clouds of steam and large woks characterize the potsticker stall while the noodle house occupies a street-entry spot. Huang is a third-generation restaurateur and Shaanxi noodle maker on his father's side. He is also a third-generation professional Chinese acrobat who trained from age seven. He performed in a Chinese cultural exhibition at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, later worked at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and toured the United States as an acrobat before returning to the restaurant trade.
That's what drew me and my Mandarin translator, Lanlian Szeto, to Old Oakland on a recent Wednesday to meet Huang and learn how he got to this famed foodie corner. We started at Huang Cheng Potsticker in Swan's Market, where clouds of billowing steam rose off vats of boiling dumplings and golden-brown dumplings danced in the bubbling hot oil of huge woks. Huang went back and forth between this stall and his nearby Huangcheng Noodle House, which occupies a street-entry spot at Swan's.
Huang first came to the United States as part of a Chinese cultural exhibition at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles - China's first reentry into the games since 1952. Later, he secured a steady acrobat gig at MGM Grand in Las Vegas and got to tour the U.S. As he sat down, Huang busted out pictures of his past life on his phone, showing us World Journal clippings and pictures of him doing a one-hand handstand on a skinny pole.
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