Today we’d like to introduce you to Mia Su.
Mia, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am just an ordinary mother of three moved from Hong Kong 10 years ago. I had never imagined I would work in a kitchen in the past. As soon as I graduated from earning a Bachelor’s degree from Poly U (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) in Hotel Management, I moved to Houston and married my husband, Jack, and had been a housewife for 5 years since. Despite the love I have for my family, there was a voice that spoke to myself, and I was caught in the train of thought about self-actualization.
5 years was a long time staying in a limited social circle. Jack would invite friends over from time to time for me to put my passion of making food to use. At first, I’d make Hong Kong street food that reminds me of home and shared it with our friends; however, the words spread quickly, and there were more requests for desserts and other savories that the unabating encouragements—as a result—fueled me the courage to have a shop of my own. Thus, it explains the origin story of Mia’s Goodies brand image— a chicken on top of a mochi. Lo Mai Gai (Sticky Rice Chicken; Cantonese) was one of the Hong Kong food I made in the early stage (which brings a lot of my teenage lunch memories in Hong Kong) and mochi has always been the popular dessert item being requested for.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Of course, it’s a hard NO! Especially we opened right at the beginning of COVID. I say it was a lot of hard work, a lot of crying, a lot of doubts, a lot of worries, and a lot of good people that pushed us to where we are today. Without any experience of working in a commercial kitchen, I learned a lot from trial-and-error. The first several months we opened, I hardly slept. It was 80 hours of work a week on top of 3-4 hours of sleep. I would be crying with my eyes half-opened while rolling up my sleeves to make the desserts and savories in the kitchen. That was a very bleak time of my life. Nevertheless, we powered through the lows and started to have more helpers who are kind people with excellent work ethics.
However, when I overcome an obstacle, another one comes up. Currently, we are still facing labor shortage, ingredient price surge, and ingredient shortage problems. No matter how hard it is, Mia’s Goodies is still striving our best. It’s a living extension of my hometown where I keep my fondest memory of Hong Kong alive by reimaging its street food in Sugar Land. I hope the existence of Mia’s Goodies will help Hongkonger to fight their homesick and people who don’t know Hong Kong to get to try some popular flavors in Hong Kong.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Mia’s Goodies?
Mia’s Goodies is more than just a dessert shop that sells Cream Puffs, Mochi, and Sago Drink. We do not add any artificial food colorings to our food, and we make our savories without adding any preservatives or MSG. Therefore, we make everything fresh and hope customers to eat them fresh too! We rotate our cream puffs and mochi flavors every week with weekend specials being the highlight. We are selling curry fishballs and imitation shark fin soup. These two items are two of the most popular street foods in Hong Kong. We sell them as hot and in frozen pack right now, but we are hoping to do more popular savory items in the future when our staff capacity is back to normal.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I think I had been a risk taker since a young age. I always followed my heart and go my own way. As I mentioned before, I had no experience in working in a commercial kitchen, I think the biggest risk I took was to open up Mia’s Goodies with no experience of how to run a dessert shop/food store. But I have a favorite quote to myself, “If you never try, you will never know.” I am lucky and grateful and I think this risk has definitely paid off with many people’s help and love. Now, my favorite goodies can be shared with everybody.
However, after I opened up Mia’s Goodies, I think I am gradually changing from a risk-taker to a challenge-taker. To me, a risk is uncertain, unevaluated, and dangerous. If you take a risk, you may lose everything without realizing at the very end. A challenge is different. It’s something that you want to test if you are capable or how well you are capable of. Before you take a challenge, you will estimate grounds and facts, and you will have the courage and awareness of losing something. So I encourage every one of you reading this article not to be afraid of taking challenge. Don’t be afraid of starting over. Because, every time you take a challenge, it’s not starting over from zero, it’s starting over with your precious past experience.
Contact Info:
- Email: miasgoodiestx@gmail.com
- Website: www.miasgoodies.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/miasgoodiestx/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/miasgoodies
