Giant Takeout Box with Flame-Throwing Chopsticks Serves Dumplings at Burning Man

As Burning Man attendees build their annual, pop-up civilization in the Nevada desert this week, they’ll finally be getting something all real cities need: Late-night dumplings. Theirs, in Burning Man fashion, will be served out of a piece of temporary art: A 15-foot kiosk built to resemble a giant take-out box, complete with flame-throwing chopsticks, because burners are pyromaniacal like that.

Camp Catmandu constructed the “Black Rock City” restaurant in anticipation of the festival this week with about $10,000 in Kickstarter funding. 9-year veterans of the playa, members of the camp have brought elaborate installations to Burning Man before, including a several story, human-sized cat tree.

Catmandu/Kickstarter

Catmandu will serve 3,300 dumplings — they appear to be of the mass-produced, frozen variety — to hungry burners, plus 1,000 fortune cookies stuffed with custom-made, “snarky” fortunes. In July, the team ran a pop-up test run at another festival where they were apparently well-received. To address any health concerns, the group applied for a State of Nevada health and food service permit prior to the event.

While Catmandu’s main camp is located at 8:45 & E, in playa address terms, the location of the Takeout Box is undisclosed. To get their dumpling fix, burners will have to track it down, though the flame-throwing chopsticks should help.

What, many typically wonder do burners eat for a week in the desert, besides “playa dust” and acid? As a page on the Burning Man organization’s website explains, most residents of Black Rock City cook in communal kitchens. Camps bring food for themselves, usually the kind of freeze-dried supplies they might take backpacking, frequently buying up most of the inventory at grocery stores in the Reno area.

“FYI friends, I was in three Reno Walmarts today and as you can see they are completely sold out of industrial sized jars of mustard,” one burner wrote on Reddit several days ago. “The condiment section was looking pretty bare as well.”

Looks like dumpling diners might need to barter for a dash of soy sauce.

• Burning Man 2017 photos: It begins [Curbed SF]
• Camp Catmandu [official]
• Burning Man Event Preparation [official]