Inside Look: Mudan Modern Asian Cuisine opens, serving dim sum and Cantonese dishes

At the new modern Chinese restaurant Mudan Modern Asian Cuisine, it’s possible to round up 14 of your closest friends and gather around a table with a remote-control-operated lazy Susan, a convenient amenity when perusing a seven-page menu steeped in Cantonese cooking.

Serving dim sum, a dedicated lineup of soup dumplings, housemade rice noodle dishes, classic Chinese favorites and broad vegetarian options, the go-big eatery soft-opened on Oct. 6. A grand opening will follow soon.

Mudan is the latest project by Capital Region restaurateurs Stacy and Danny Zheng, who expanded their Prairieville concept Daruma Ramen to Government Street in February and are currently completing renovations on their King Buffet on Bluebonnet Boulevard. A forthcoming revolving sushi bar, Zuma, is expected to open on Government Street in 2027.

For Mudan, the couple teamed with Bihai Liu, owner of the popular Kenner dim sum and Cantonese restaurant Yummy House. Liu was eager to expand to Baton Rouge, Stacy Zheng says.

Zheng jokes that the original menu for Mudan was about 14 pages long. She cut the options by half, still leaving diners a dizzying bounty of possibilities. While they weren’t operating this week, iPads come with every table, making it easy for patrons to place orders and to keep placing them to sample all those flavors and textures. Indeed, stir-fried shrimp and veggies arranged in a deep-fried noodle nest, crispy sweet and sour Kyoto pork chops, all manner of dim sum, and so many other dishes justify coming with a group.

The 150-seat eatery, once the home of Southern Pearl Oyster House, has been updated with warm grays and tans illuminated by a smattering of wrought iron and red lantern light fixtures and a large digital wall screen illuminated with a Chinese streetscape. Bamboo botanicals offer soft accents across the space, which includes an expansive main dining room with a combination of booths and round tables topped by manual lazy Susans. There’s also a generous bar area and a separate private room featuring two extra-large round tables equipped with motorized revolving servers.

Dim sum is one of the restaurant’s most prominent offerings. While a growing number of Capital Region concepts offer dumpling menus, Zheng says there’s still plenty of room for growth in the dim sum space.

“Personally, I love dim sum,” she says. “And there is no real dim sum yet around here.”

Zheng says she had enjoyed the fare at Yummy House and was excited to bring a similar menu to Baton Rouge. Business partner and Yummy House founder Liu is now in the kitchen at Mudan to ensure the fare is executed authentically.

A good place to start is with dim sum, a reliable lineup of potstickers, tower-shaped shu mai, beef short ribs, chicken feet, various bao, slightly sweet egg tarts, sesame balls and more. Multiple soup dumplings give diners a chance to savor this dim sum fixture, whose scalding internal temperature requires piercing the skin to release hot soup first within the spoon’s confines.

The “chef’s sizzling specials” feature numerous clay pot dishes. Combinations of proteins and veggies are finished in clay pots in the kitchen that are brought to the table for serving, a method that seals in juices and gives such dishes their characteristic deep flavor, Zheng says. The ingredient combinations vary widely, from short rib with eggplant to chili frog legs to beef brisket with bean curd and many others.

Zheng says she’s particularly excited about the vegetarian offerings, which include deftly seared tofu tossed with king mushrooms, carrots and red pepper, and sautées starring Asian veggies like snow pea leaf or water spinach. Each is featured in its own dish, draped in a rich garlicky sauce accompanied by jasmine rice.

The restaurant also serves several seafood dishes, including lobster three ways–steamed, stir-fried and deep-fried and tossed with garlic and crispy shallots. While it’s not yet stocked, the restaurant plans to fill a large, tiered tank with live lobsters and fish.

Mudan is located at 9460 Perkins Rd. and is open Sunday through Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.