Each dish draws on traditional favorites from all across Asia, from India to Vietnam, with a chef’s attention to ingredients and detail: The orange beef is made with grass-fed brisket, the snapper crudo is served alongside chawanmushi-topped sticky rice. In this converted ’40s-era gas station, you’ll find modern takes on dan dan noodles, mapo dofu, and butter curry that would please even “fusion” skeptics. (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.It’s not authenticity they’re after at Xiao Bao, just powerful flavor and fun vibes. Delightfully Sichuan-spiced stir-fry La Zi Cauliflower is another must-have. There’s a generous amount of crabmeat in the buttery Crab Fried Rice. Soft Bao buns come stuffed with juicy pork. 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. 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. Som Tum, green papaya salad, is a classic Thai dish, here prepared with finesse. We’re also charmed by the twee pair of scissors that accompanies the bowl, so you can snip those strips into smaller pieces. Not swimming in sauce-the noodles absorb all the complex flavors, making it a pleasure to eat. 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. We’d heard raves for the Biang Biang noodle dish, and we concur. You can further embellish it with a sunny egg, pork candy, or katsuo, the umami-laden fermented/smoked skipjack tuna shavings. The thin round is finished with a striping of sauces and a scatter of sesame. Finely shredded vegetables such as green cabbage, scallion, carrot, and kale are combined in a light batter and griddled to savory-sweetness. Their version, inspired by their time working on an organic farm in Japan, is more hash brown than pancake, ethereally light in its preparation. We also found a crisp effervescent rosé that paired beautifully with the food.Īnd, when it comes to that food, take our advice: Order everything. A great place to start is with the Okonomiyaki. London Flower has Sichuan peppercorn infused gin stirred with Pimm’s and lemon. Combining sparkling wine and Midori liqueur, Ecto Cooler is a tall refreshing sip. Punctilious means meticulous attention to detail-and it applies to all of Xiao Bao’s beverages. Now they can expand their offerings: serving lunch, dinner, and brunch, along with a select roster of cocktails, wines, and “punctilious” beers. While readying the McFerrin Park full-service restaurant, they introduced a limited menu pop-up at The Dive Motel. Excited by Nashville’s creative art and music scene, they chose our city for their next venture. They followed with a second outpost in Charlotte in 2021. The couple made a name for themselves when they opened their first restaurant, Xiao Bao Biscuit, in a gas station in Charleston in 2012. The result is an enchanting intersection of food, drink, nostalgia, adventure, and story, and is unlike any other place in the city. Dumplings, noodles, bao, stir-fry, salads, snacks: the fare imparts bold flavors and deep comforts. Li envisioned and designed the look, based on her memories growing up in the PRC.Įxecutive Chef Walker created his menu based on their travels (including a seven-month honeymoon) throughout Asia. Retro glass lighting fixtures suspend from the ceiling, some hand-painted with floral motifs-further adding to the sense of another place, another time. 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. A combo of chrome booths and banquettes make up the main dining area. One side of the restaurant has a lounge area with red leather couches. 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. The gigantic bright red strawberry sculpture is the first sign that you’ve arrived. 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.
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