Carne al Carbon
The expansion of eating options continues apace out on Charlotte Pike. Where once you would head west for great Korean food or the concentration of Vietnamese places on the stretch of the pike beyond White Bridge Road, the past couple of years have been really good for the part of Charlotte by Sylvan Park: M.L. Rose, Flip Burger, Hattie B’s and more have given the West Side real options.
So now comes Bajo Sexto Taco Lounge, an expansion on the taco joint situated in the Country Music Hall of Fame that’s run by chef Kaelin Trilling under the auspices of Jonathan Waxman’s burgeoning restaurant empire.
Let’s start with what Bajo Sexto gets right.
If restaurateurs need a model for converting auto shops into great dining spaces along Nashville’s changing pikes — Charlotte, Gallatin and Nolensville, in particular — they should come here first.
The converted muffler shop is flat-out beautiful, full of bright colors and a giant ceiling mural of a bajo sexto, the restaurant’s namesake 12-string guitar. The doors of the former mechanics’ bays throw open (when the weather isn’t ridiculously hot) and offer a California feel to the space in a way similar to sister restaurant Adele’s, also a Waxman creation in a converted garage. Sitting on the patio at night, you won’t even care that the seats are just a few yards from a busy four-lane road.
(Be forewarned: The limited parking isn’t great, and if you have to duck around the corner to park on the street, you’re going to be fighting overflow from Bobbie’s Dairy Dip, Hattie B’s and Miel, depending on the time of day.)
Walking in the front door for the first time, I found the setup a little confusing. The muffler shop’s former office is an ordering station, with refrigerators of drinks to grab and take with you. But upon my return, I thought it came off as charmingly casual. The staff chats up the specials at the register — if there’s a guac special, be sure to get it — and after you give them your order, you head for a table or the bar, which is stocked with beer, mezcal, sangria and a few other treats.
Past that, though, Sexto has some work to do.
To start with, any place that bills itself as a taco lounge — and Bajo Sexto does, in huge signage out front — ought to be killing at that part of its menu. But my companions and I had a lot of problems with the taco selections, from bland carnitas to a vegetarian option whose watery contents disintegrated its tortillas, to a duck version that was indistinguishable from the pork in side-by-side tastings.
Baja Fish Taco
Not everything was disappointing, though. The chili-rubbed grilled beef, served with a healthy char and a tangy tomatillo salsa, was outstanding and easily our favorite taco. (I ordered extras to go.) And I also loved the fish taco: a crunchy piece of cod topped with Napa cabbage and a creamy chipotle mayo.
You can drive yourself crazy wondering about value for money on tacos like these. I mean, there are surely cheaper (and better) versions around town, and when a nicer restaurant does its own version of street food, there’s always the sneaking suspicion that a cart or mom-and-pop place in a former gas station somewhere is doing it better. That’s one of the risks of putting such offerings on the menu. But on the other hand, there aren’t many other places in town that will let me sip imported Topo Chico mineral water while plowing through good fish tacos. Your mileage may vary.
The buzziest taco on the menu is the chapulines, or grasshoppers. I tried one, and it was fine. The insects, a pretty common street dish in parts of Mexico, are roasted down and are basically salty, crunchy bits with taco toppings. I probably wouldn’t order them again, but that had more to do with the salsa than the bugs.
When you order one of the larger plates, though, you can see why Waxman hired the 23-year-old Trilling, the son of Oaxacan chef Susana Trilling. Freed from the tiny kitchen at the Hall of Fame, he can do things like pollo al carbon, a grilled half-chicken that soars, with bits of onion and a salsa pasilla; it’s simple and full of flavor. Similarly, the carne al carbon is outstanding, a blackened piece of skirt steak left rare inside, served with a salad at lunch and more substantial fried eggs at dinner. We also liked the tamales — one of the daily specials — as a delivery vehicle for the wonderful salsa verde spiked with fresh summer corn.
It’s enough to make you wonder how Trilling and his staff would do if they weren’t obliged to serve half a menu of tacos and were instead freed to roll out a full range of Oaxacan favorites. The idea of a taco lounge, too, is going to come with the expectation of “cheap,” a problem for many diners when it’s all too easy to drop $50 at Bajo Sexto on food for two.
Is Bajo Sexto a lounge that also sells food? Is it an ultra-casual restaurant trying to double as a late-night hang on the weekends? The jury is still out. There’s a really interesting restaurant in there, and Trilling and Waxman may find it yet.
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