Welcome to the Restaurant as Acid Test, a one-way ticket to Toontown. Bowien himself is not un-Bugs-Bunny-like: slight of frame, graceful in motion, slyly mischievous, floppy on top. His long hair, dyed the color of orange sherbet, and clear-framed glasses are on their way to becoming as iconic on the New York dining scene as Mario Batali's clogs or Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Prada pants. When the 30-year-old chef speaks, it's in quick, low-volume bursts—shy but passionate, halfway onto the next thing. He seems perpetually amused by the place he's found himself, and, in turn, it's easy to be amused by his quirky, alien presence. When he appeared on The Martha Stewart Show, demonstrating how to make hand-pulled noodles, it was like watching representatives of two very distant planets.

At the restaurant one Tuesday morning, he was wearing a black cable-knit cotton sweater, the skinniest of black jeans, and pointy patent leather shoes without socks. A recent Uniqlo ad depicting him in a puffy yellow jacket notwithstanding, Bowien tends to the monochromatic: all white in summer, all black the rest of the time. "I saw him wear a color once," chef de cuisine Zach Swemle says, sounding unsure of whether he had, in fact, imagined the whole thing. "I think it was a green scarf."

It being an hour between 10 a.m. and midnight and a day ending in y, Bowien has to pick his way through people patiently waiting on the sidewalk for their chance to descend the steps of the onetime Thai restaurant, make their way past a curtain and a keg of free beer for those still stuck outside, down a cluttered corridor, past the order windows that look onto the narrow kitchen, and into the dining room, where the dragon awaits. From the day that Mission Chinese opened, as pre-hyped a restaurant as New York has ever seen, the crowd around a beleaguered ash tree outside its sunken entrance has been an all-but-permanent fixture.

The night before had been as packed as ever, including, in no particular order: tourists, hipsters, hipsters with their tourist parents, couples on dates, people photographing every plate that emerged from the kitchen, a table of boisterous Wall Streeters from Bowien's home state of Oklahoma, the San Francisco-based folk-rock band Vetiver, and chef Magnus Nilsson, of the acclaimed Swedish restaurant Fäviken. At one point a large, serious-faced man in a suit and an earpiece swept through, giving the dining room a security inspection. Soon after entered David Chang, of Momofuku fame, dining with—yes, of course—Dr. Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank. Whether they discussed pork buns, fiscal policy, or the Hüsker Dü pounding over the speakers, it was hard to say.

Now the kitchen is back at it, working under conditions that would make a claustrophobe squirm. In a corridor perhaps five feet across, two blazing-hot woks put forth sizzling portions of intensely smoky thrice-cooked Benton's bacon; spiced chicken hearts in bright red Sichuan-peppercorn oil; innocent-looking fried rice, slicked with the funky hit of salt cod. Gnarled, sticky knobs of pigs' tails, braised in root beer and then battered like McNuggets, bubble happily in a deep fryer. Bowien hurries through, checking on how things are. He stops for a gentle, encouraging word to a new chef working the expediter's position who is confused about the final touches on a particular dish. He does the same with a Hispanic dishwasher charged with prepping bright green pea leaves, taking the knife and demonstrating the proper cut.

Another chef is tucked into a tight corner, plating the pickled and cold dishes—pig's-ear terrine, creamy--centered tea-smoked eggs, frighteningly addictive peanuts soaked in vinegar and dusted with garlic and anise—that are as vital to a Mission Chinese meal as the menu's more pyrotechnic punches. Still, gut-wrenching spiciness is the restaurant's most obvious calling card: The place routinely provokes gastrointestinal conversations of a candidness not usually heard outside of South Asian backpacker hostels. That the crowd is nevertheless so diverse speaks to another of Bowien's crucial insights: Americans love Chinese food. Not only the bounty of exciting ethnic Chinese cuisines we've been blessed with in recent years, but Chinese Food, capital C, capital F—the gloopy, greasy stuff, ordered off a wall of backlit photos or a Torah-length takeout menu, delivered in a white wad--cardboard box with a wire handle. That stuff is as important to what is cooked at Mission Chinese as any other, more refined, source of inspiration. Bowien knows Americans love Chinese Food, in part because he loves Chinese Food. And if he has a particular genius, it's his natural, even naive conviction that what he loves, you will love, too. Developing the menu for the restaurant was in part a months-long excuse to order $100 worth of Chinese delivery a night. "My wife was finally like, 'Enough. No more research,' " he says.