The Spices and Rices of Nolensville Pike

Just as the Cumberland River snakes west through downtown Nashville, Nolensville Pike stretches south from the fairgrounds all the way out to the suburbs. And like a river, Nolensville Pike provides for the people who live on its banks.

Along this road, you can find ingredients from almost any country in the world. Stop at any taco truck or hot pot spot that lines the road and you'll gain a new appreciation for the diversity of Southern cuisine. Linger long enough in any of the road's markets or bakeries and you'll hear a great story.

I recently learned that Nolensville Pike is one of the most significant refugee resettlement areas in the South. The combination of affordable housing and existing community has turned the road into a home for so many new Southerners. People who live along Nolensville Pike often work, play, and eat there. Each restaurant reflects that investment, that pride in both current home and homeland. The same pride that I feel sharing Punjabi culture with Nashville.

When people think about Nashville, they often leap to bachelorettes and honky tonks. Country music and live shows. Bushwhackers and Bud Lights.

But Nolensville Pike represents our city just as much as any of these things.

In May, I invited Alyssa Rosenheck, author of The New Southern Style: The Interiors of a Lifestyle and Design Movement, to explore the shops and markets of Nolensville Pike with me. Alyssa thinks about the New South. She questions tropes about the region and spotlights creative Southerners who are reshaping our home in their own image. I wanted to experience Nolensville Pike with her because I knew she'd appreciate the movement that these restaurants represent.

On that May afternoon, Alyssa and I hopped from restaurant to restaurant and nation to nation in a matter of minutes. We met up at Surati Indian Street Food. After gorging on pani puri and Chinese bhel, we moved on to Patel Brothers next door. We drove south to K&S World Market, Nolensville Pike's lighthouse, its anchor store. Before entering, we stopped at the taquería outside. After exploring the fish and spices inside K&S, we popped into La Conchita Panadería y Pastelería next door for pan dulce.

We hopped back into our cars and drove south once more, stopping at Baraka International Market & Bakery for pistachio baklava. We walked across the parking lot to Sichuan Hot Pot & Asian Cuisine, where we celebrated the afternoon, and the road, over vegetables and drinks. It brings me great joy and energy to see these places rebounding after the pandemic.

Southern cuisine is more than meat-and-three. It's all of these beautiful, delicious ethnic restaurants.

It's Nolensville Pike.

I met Alyssa in the parking lot between Surati and Patel Brothers. Inside Surati, we grabbed a booth and started with some pani puri — fried, puffy bread. We poked holes in the center and loaded them up with onions, tamarind, and chickpeas.

We followed up the pani puri with Chinese bhel, crispy noodles spicy enough to make our noses run. Indochinese is among my favorite cuisines, and I'm excited to have a go-to spot for it in Nashville.

From Surati, we stepped inside Patel Brothers to wander the aisles. The store's spices, rices, and plants always turn the gears in my mind. I usually pick up big packages of ghee and chakki atta, a wheat flour, and go through them over several months. My husband, Vivek, and I do our level best to cook every night for the kids, and Patel Brothers only helps.

Food trucks straddle both sides of the Pike, offering everything from tacos and pupusas to pad thai and shawarma. The truck outside K&S World Market makes great quesabirria, cheesy tacos with stewed birria meat. Quesabirria is huge in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles right now and is just gaining steam in Nashville.

We washed down our tacos with horchata, which for me is quintessential Mexican cuisine. It's washed rice, soaked with canela (cinnamon), and blended. I like the more luscious version, which includes condensed milk. Otherwise, you can add sugar. I love what horchata represents — ingenuity and maximizing what's around.

After our stop at the food truck, we walked into K&S World Market. K&S is a beacon for Nolensville Pike and Nashville. You can find just about anything within its walls. Strolling the aisles, perusing live seafood, imagining possibilities — K&S is a feast for your senses and your stomach. The market sells more than 100,000 products, including banana flower (pictured), from all corners of the world. K&S helps people in Nashville's immigrant community find tastes of home.

Our cashier at K&S recommended that we stop at the bakery next door. When we asked what we should buy from La Conchita, she smiled and shook her head.

"Everything," she said. "Everything is good there."

Visually, La Conchita is stunning. Shelf upon shelf of pan dulce, sweet bread, colorful bits of sugar adorning each pastry. My go-to is conchas, sweet rolls shaped like seashells. Alyssa loved the doughnuts and croissants.

Alyssa and I felt ready for more sweets, so we drove south down Nolensville, heading for Baraka, a Middle Eastern market in a strip mall. We also stopped at Tennessee Oriental Market next door. New owners took over Baraka a few years ago, but the store has ordered the same pastries from the same company for years. Pistachios provide much of the flavor, a dusty, green sprinkle atop the baklava.

After we left Baraka, we spotted a hot pot restaurant across the way. On a whim, we decided to end our tour there. We shared vegetables, Sapporo, and white wine, toasting to the afternoon on our city's best street, to restaurants becoming healthy once more.