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Chef-owner Guiping Huang has run the kitchen at Little Pepper, a pioneer of Sichuan food in Queens, for nearly 20 years.

He's there from noon to night, smoking tea leaves to embed their subtle fragrance into a whole duck, juicing scallions to produce fragrant green rice, dry-aging sausage until it's translucent, and commanding foot-high flames to achieve wok hei, a caramelized smoky flavor.

Huang's work has paid off: Little Pepper has been a beloved local Sichuan restaurant since 2005. Before that, he ran a popular snack stall at a Flushing food court.