Now this is the news I've been waiting for. Happy birthday to me!

Also, I'm glad to see the chef from Shanghai Cafe plying his trade at another place. I kicked myself after reading about it on Lannae's blog just as it was shutting down.

I've only had dim sum three times in my life, twice awesome (in SF and NY, at the Golden Unicorn), once pretty bad (in Chicago's Chinatown). Are there any under-the-radar specialties I should watch for?

excellent news.

Mr. Pink....may I suggest sticky rice and Chinese sausage wrapped in lotus leaves if available.

Been there for traditional Chinese food and it's every bit as good as Shanghai Cafe was. The menu selection is smaller, and it's written exclusively in Chinese (though the friendly waitress kindly translated every dish for us). Haven't tried the weekend dim sum yet, but they made some for us that night. My traditional favorites are the spare ribs in black bean sauce and steamed bean curd skin rolls. They don't have the meat-filled rice noodles available yet, but those are generally favorites, too....

We checked it out this morning around 11:30. There were about 6 different tables of people seated during the time we were there, but room for lots more. There was just one cart with lots of different things on it that the server brought around once in a while, and a menu with dim sum items that you could order off of. They have just about all of the things you'd expect-- different dumplings, shaomai, turnip cake, steamed buns, chicken feet, etc. Most of the items were $2.50 or $2.75.

We went Saturday for lunch around noon. Again there was one cart with a few items going around. We started with the steamed buns with pork which lacked any flavor. The filling was tiny compared to the bland bun. We also tried the tripe and ginger; another poor dish. It lacked any ginger flavor, and the texture of the tripe was too much to handle with anyone taste. The pan fried pork dumplings tasted like they were swimming in grease. The menu was difficult to read and our waitress was difficult to understand. Hopefully they will translate the menu or have waiting staff that can communicate with customers.

Pete:

Are you the Pete I see at Golden Coast? If so, I take it you recommend I stick to the Golden Coast weekend buffet for now?

so pete, what i'm hearing is that if the wait staff speaks better english, the food will become more acceptable?

isn't shitty food, shitty food in any language?

Jack…different Pete.

Claudia…maybe I would’ve felt more comfortable about what I was getting if I knew what it was I was eating. The language barrier did not help. We tried a total of 5 different items and the flower tea….all equally as bad as the next. I could not get the waitress to translate the Chinese only menu.

Hmm, sorry you had such a bad experience, Pete. We all thought that the food was pretty good. We were disappointed about the filling in the steamed pork buns, but other than that we thought that everything was great. We didn't try the tripe or the pan fried dumplings though.

pete - not promising
i may have to stay clear

with all i eat, and i eat it all - tripe just never worked out for me...

Well, I have been to Ouyang House twice in the past two days, and am thrilled to find Cantonese food in Nashville at all, far less dim sum (or yum cha as we would call it in Australia and Hong Kong). Limited variety, but all made in-house, and all things considered, really very good.

No, this is not the best yum cha I've ever had - it's not Luk Yu Teahouse or Zen in Hong Kong, or Red Emperor or Flower Drum in Melbourne... but for Nashville it is exceptional.

The staff are enthusiastically trying to build an authentic dim sum experience, focusing on getting the basics right, and then expanding on that. Given everything is done in-house and on-site by the chefs, not frozen, prepackaged and reheated, I think they're doing a great job - it's only been open about six or seven weeks now, and I'm certainly going to go back.

Yesterday we went with a party of nine, and today a party of ten - all very experienced yum cha eaters from Melbourne, the home of many, many ex-Hong Kong yum cha chefs. We had all the basics - har gau, siu mai, char siu bao, pork spare ribs, etc, and also ordered some extra things, like beef chow fun, and braised baby bok choi. We all agreed that we would become regulars here. It's a bit hard to hide ten Australians anywhere, far less a Chinese restaurant in Nashville, so the staff were very friendly, and talked with us at length about the kind of things we'd like to see added to the menu - all things they were hoping to add in the coming weeks and months!

A piece of advice - you can order any of the dim sum items off the menu, in which case they may be made fresh for you. During the week it's all a la carte, on Saturdays and Sundays it's the traditional carts and trolleys going from table to table.

Short story - I never thought I'd find something like this in Nashville, I'm absolutely delighted, and I'm certain to be going back. Look for me - the Asian-Australian with a large bunch of Australians ordering everything on the menu and off!