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Ryan Belk
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Ryan Belk
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Ryan Belk
Xiao Bao, the brilliant Asian restaurant and bar conceived by husband-and-wife team Joshua Walker and Duolan Li, has opened in McFerrin Park—adding another terrific dining option to the neighborhood already home to Folk, Audrey, and Red Headed Stranger.
Head down Meridian Street. The gigantic bright red strawberry sculpture is the first sign that you’ve arrived. The plain facade of the building, former site of a landscaping business, belies its cool interior, a kind of mid-century American diner/Mainland China mash-up. One side of the restaurant has a lounge area with red leather couches. A combo of chrome booths and banquettes make up the main dining area. In ’50s diner fashion, chrome-based stools line the sleek bar; an assortment of fans, ceramic figurines, vintage clocks, and statues of shiny black glazed cats decorate the shelves. Retro glass lighting fixtures suspend from the ceiling, some hand-painted with floral motifs—further adding to the sense of another place, another time. Li envisioned and designed the look, based on her memories growing up in the PRC.
Executive Chef Walker created his menu based on their travels (including a seven-month honeymoon) throughout Asia. Dumplings, noodles, bao, stir-fry, salads, snacks: the fare imparts bold flavors and deep comforts. The result is an enchanting intersection of food, drink, nostalgia, adventure, and story, and is unlike any other place in the city.
The couple made a name for themselves when they opened their first restaurant, Xiao Bao Biscuit, in a gas station in Charleston in 2012. They followed with a second outpost in Charlotte in 2021. Excited by Nashville’s creative art and music scene, they chose our city for their next venture. While readying the McFerrin Park full-service restaurant, they introduced a limited menu pop-up at The Dive Motel. Now they can expand their offerings: serving lunch, dinner, and brunch, along with a select roster of cocktails, wines, and “punctilious” beers.
Punctilious means meticulous attention to detail—and it applies to all of Xiao Bao’s beverages. Combining sparkling wine and Midori liqueur, Ecto Cooler is a tall refreshing sip. London Flower has Sichuan peppercorn infused gin stirred with Pimm’s and lemon. We also found a crisp effervescent rosé that paired beautifully with the food.
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Ryan Belk
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Ryan Belk
And, when it comes to that food, take our advice: Order everything. A great place to start is with the Okonomiyaki. Their version, inspired by their time working on an organic farm in Japan, is more hash brown than pancake, ethereally light in its preparation. Finely shredded vegetables such as green cabbage, scallion, carrot, and kale are combined in a light batter and griddled to savory-sweetness. The thin round is finished with a striping of sauces and a scatter of sesame. Utterly delicious. You can further embellish it with a sunny egg, pork candy, or katsuo, the umami-laden fermented/smoked skipjack tuna shavings.
We’d heard raves for the Biang Biang noodle dish, and we concur. The wheat-based pasta is hand-pulled into long, somewhat irregular belt-like strips, cloaked in garlicky chili oil, with slices of cumin-scented brisket, braised to tenderness. Not swimming in sauce—the noodles absorb all the complex flavors, making it a pleasure to eat. We’re also charmed by the twee pair of scissors that accompanies the bowl, so you can snip those strips into smaller pieces.
Som Tum, green papaya salad, is a classic Thai dish, here prepared with finesse. Julienned strands of the unripe fruit and raw green beans, lime, fish sauce, chilis, and palm sugar take on sweet, sour, savory, and spicy tastes, with a scatter of crushed peanuts adding compelling crunch. It is delicious on its own, or as part of a luncheon entree, served with black bean fermented fried chicken and a scoop of sticky rice.
Soft Bao buns come stuffed with juicy pork. There’s a generous amount of crabmeat in the buttery Crab Fried Rice. Delightfully Sichuan-spiced stir-fry La Zi Cauliflower is another must-have. (Note: other dishes, such as the Biang Biang noodles, can be made for vegetarians with mushrooms.) There’s much to beckon you back: As Duolan Li and Joshua Warner note on the website and menu, “happiness is available, please help yourself.”
(830 Meridian St.; xiaobaonashville.com)