Days of wine and dumplings coming to Centre Street in Jamaica Plain

The Boston Licensing Board today approved a licensing swap in which the owners of Frogmore in Hyde Square will sell their beer and wine license to the new dumpling joint going in where Charlie Chan's used to be and Frogmore will in turn get one of the new all-alcohol licenses available in certain Boston neighborhoods.

The Pink Samurai, 668 Centre St., across from JP Licks, will sell "gourmet dumplings" in a restaurant with 19 seats, its attorney, Adam Barnosky, said at a hearing yesterday. Beer and wine will be available until midnight, dumplings and associated food items until 1 a.m.

The restaurant is technically buying the beer-and-wine license of the old Centre Street Sanctuary, 365 Centre St., which closed last year and which is technically now operating the Frogmore South Carolina low-country restaurant there.

The owner of Centre Street Sanctuary is one of four owners of the new Frogmore. The board approved a neighborhood-restricted all-alcohol license for that restaurant; unlike older licenses, it cannot be resold to a restaurant downtown or along the waterfront, and is one of 75 licenses the city is getting to spur restaurant development in Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury and the city's "Main Street" districts, including the one along Centre from Hyde to Jackson squares.

Barnosky said the public need for the license is that that stretch of Centre Street is "really underserved" by sit-down restaurants at this point.

City officials and the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council supported both proposals.