Dumpling News

Restaurant starring soup dumplings to open in Fort Worth's Near Southside

Colorful dumplings on the menu at Teddy Wong's.

fortworth.culturemap.com

Fort Worth is getting an exciting new dumpling spot from a team of high-profile collaborators. Called Teddy Wong's Dumplings & Wine, it'll be a Chinese restaurant with a stellar selection of dumplings and Chinese classics, opening in the Near Southside, at 812 W. Rosedale St., in the space previously occupied by Le's Wok Asian Food.

Targeted opening date is early May.

Teddy Wong's is from Patrick Ru, who previously owned restaurants in New York before moving to Dallas in 2020. He's a perfectionist at his craft, who wanted to do dim sum with a special focus on dumplings.

In 2021, he very quietly opened Bushi Bushi in Addison.

Now, for his Fort Worth debut, he's partnered with a high-powered team that includes Fort Worth chef Stefon Rishel and hospitality veteran Jeffrey Yarbrough, a Fort Worth native and owner of bigInk Commercial Real Estate.

Yarbrough has decades of experience in restaurants, bars, and nightlife, including partnering in 1998 with Dallas chef Annie Wong (once dubbed "the mother of Thai food"), in a pan-Asian restaurant on Greenville Avenue in Dallas called Liberty Noodles that was well ahead of its time.

For Yarbrough, who took care of Annie until she died in 2007, this offered an opportunity to rekindle a like-minded collaboration.

"Patrick had that entrepeneurial spirit and wanted to expand, and I felt like what he was doing was even cooler than what he realized," Yarbrough says. "He also wanted to find a chef partner, and I've known Stefon for years. Stefon and I drove to Addison, and he started eating this Peking duck. He and Patrick made a real connection."

But it's the dumplings that will be the thing.

They'll have a variety of options: veggie, chicken, seafood, both steamed and pan-fried, six pieces for $8 to $10, and then soup dumplings, which have become a big bestseller at Bushi Bushi. (Soup dumplings, aka xiao long bao, are a big foodie trend. They're not actually filled with soup but with ingredients that melt and form a broth; they're staples of a traditional Chinese dim sum brunch.)

Peking duck and BBQ pork will also be signatures.

Le's Wok closed in 2021, and the property was originally slated to be razed — until Yarbrough persuaded the new owners that it could be a cool location for dumplings and carry on the tradition for Asian food.

The restaurant will occupy the left side of the space, while on the right, they're planning a second concept called Bushi Bushi Market, which will sell grab-and-go dumplings plus bottles of beer and wine. It'll be a cool cosmopolitan spot featuring a chef's communal table for large groups and single diners.

As for the name, there is no Teddy Wong, at least not in real life.

"He's in my head," Yarbrough says. "I miss Annie, it's my channeling her spirit into this imaginary guy, this mythical cool character, a hip Asian cowboy with a passion for food and wine."

trends openings

Chef News

Fort Worth's Will Rogers Memorial Center welcomes bright new chef

FortWorthtx.gov

Will Rogers Memorial Center

There's a new chef in town: Waylon Cornelius, named executive chef of catering and concessions for Craft Culinary Concepts, the food and beverage provider at Will Rogers Memorial Center.

Will Rogers Memorial Center is the 120-acre entertainment complex anchoring Fort Worth’s Cultural District, owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth. Cornelius will oversee menus for trade shows and other events at the center which bring in more than 2 million visitors a year.

Craft Culinary Concepts is headquartered in Glendale, Arizona, and manages food and beverage programs for entertainment, sports and cultural facilities.

Chef Waylon Corneliusfortworthtx.gov

According to a release, Cornelius joined the team this summer and is already shifting the expectations of guests from a typical “BBQ and beans” menu to a bill of fare satisfying every kind of palate.

“We always have fajitas ready to go, but we also make a beautiful Beef Wellington or baked salmon with a pink salt crust,” Cornelius says in a statement.

For consumer trade shows, Craft and its partners Caribou and Taco Heads offer more choices for the thousands of guests who attend events at WRMC annually.

“Some of our equestrian guests are away from home and here for several days, and they need more than popcorn and hot dogs,” Cornelius says. “Our concessions offer biscuits and gravy, burritos made in-house, strawberry salad, fruit and yogurt cups.”

A native of Mansfield, Cornelius grew up helping in a farm-to-table kitchen. He was raised on a farm with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather -- a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed vegetable gardens and raising hogs and chickens. He studied computer science after high school and holds an associate's degree in Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis from Tarrant County College.

He's a 2003 graduate of AIMS Academy of Culinary Arts in Dallas where he was mentored by a number of great chefs. While training as assistant executive sous chef at the AAA four-diamond Grand Hyatt DFW, he worked with Executive Chef Sutti Sripolpa, chef Eric Dreyer (who went on to be Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef), and Chef Jean-Claude Plihon, under whom he honed his French cooking skills.

As executive sous chef at the opening of Perry’s Steakhouse and Grille in Southlake, Cornelius gained expertise with volume. While at HG Sply Co., he learned about gluten-free items and other food allergies.

HG Sply is also where he crossed paths with Chef James R. Schell III, Craft’s general manager at WRMC, who recruited Cornelius to the complex.

"James said he needed someone who can hit moving targets, push the culinary team to be more avant-garde and use locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, so here I am," Cornelius says. "Culinary is a small world."

“I want people to say, ‘When we were in Fort Worth, you won’t believe what we got at Will Rogers!’” Schell says. “Even the celebrities who perform [in the auditorium] are surprised. When Chicago played here recently and we served dinner backstage, they said they felt treated like the Rolling Stones.”

chefs