One of NYC’s Top Dumpling Chefs Heads Up Two New Chinese Fast-Casual Restaurants

One of New York City’s top dumpling chefs is behind a pair of new all-day, counter-service Chinese restaurants opening in Manhattan today.

Three Times opens close to Union Square at 818 Broadway, near 12th Street, and on the Lower East Side at 90 Clinton Street, near Delancey Street, with a menu centered on casual Chinese snacks like buns, dumplings, noodles, and rice dishes. Chef Jennifer Yang is beind the menu, bringing experience from highly popular Flushing dumpling shops Yu Garden Dumpling House and Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao.

It’s a fast-casual restaurant that also serves a lesser seen Chinese snack known as the shi bing tong, a pan-fried wrap filled with pork, squid, noodles, and other vegetables commonly enjoyed at festivals though rarely found outside of China, Yang tells Eater via a translator.

The menu here will have two versions of the shi bing tong: a vegan one and the classic, which comes comes filled with pork, squid, celery, rice noodles, sweet potato noodles, bean sprouts, onions, radish, carrots, and tofu. See the menu below.

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Prices range from $2.75 for pork buns to $12.50 for a braised beef rice bowl, all of which can be paired with milk teas or coffee on the drinks front.

Three Times is owner Jason Zhu’s first restaurant. Zhu, a former travel agent, wanted to introduce New Yorkers to shi bing tong. He tapped Yang to run the kitchen for her past experience and sterling reputation among NYC’s Chinese restaurant scene.

Zhu is determined to turn Three Times into a mini empire of fast-casual restaurants — aside from the two restaurants opening today, he’s already in talks for three additional locations in Manhattan, potentially opening next year. He plans to franchise the concept and hopes to eventually expand to other cities.

The Union Square location has 30 seats while the LES one has 36. Both are counter service. Three Times is now open in both locations from 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.