Cake de Partie

“FOY” Franklin emailed me asking what I thought of the wings at Cake de Partie. To be perfectly honest, I’ve taken the Missus there so She could have some of the desserts, but unlike Cathy, who did a post on the place back in 2021, I’d never tried any of the savory food there. So recently, I decided to head on over and get some lunch.

I do think the parking situation there has changed? There’s a free 25 minute parking for some of the other businesses in the buildings, but otherwise it’s pay parking. I ended up parking on Brinell Street and walking over. Even though it was right after opening the place filled up quickly.

Sidling up to the counter, I looked over the posted menu.

Even though the Zapp wings interested me; I decided to just try the Original Chicken Wings ($10). And since man, or at least this man can’t live on wings alone, I decided on the BBQ Pork Bowl ($13), which Cathy seemed to like on her visit.

I then took my number and had a seat on one of the smaller tables…..the place was getting busy, so I didn’t want to take up more space than I needed.

First to arrive was the BBQ Pork Bowl. The portion size was much larger than what Cathy had when she visited.

The rice was moist and tender. My favorite item was actually the salad, which had a slightly sweet, but not overly sugary strawberry vinaigrette. It was quite refreshing.

The pork was interesting as I was wondering if it was going to be like Moo Ping? This was basically marinated and stir fried slices of pork, which came with a dipping sauce like Jim Jaew, but was more on the salty side.

On the order board, it is said that it’s “Honey BBQ Pork”…which was really interesting since this was super salty and really could have used some sweetness and pungency to cut all that sodium. It really seemed like a very homestyle marinated sliced pork.

The pork was on the chewier side of the scale and some caramelization might have created a more interesting texture and developed the flavors a bit more. Still, for thirteen bucks these days….well, I don’t think I should have expected anything more.

When my wings arrived, I had to crack up. Can you figure out why?

Well, look at all those pin feathers! Basically, these chickens were having some new feathers come out. Not very picturesque and they are totally edible, but of course it does sometimes look “interesting”. Well, at least I wouldn’t have to floss my teeth after eating these, right? The batter on these was just a light dusting, which I kind of prefer as when done well, it’s really nice and crisp. Though it didn’t hold up real well and started getting soggy rather quickly.

Not a fan of the sweet chili sauce as it was way too sweet and sticky.

As mentioned earlier, the wings were initially crisp, with a very simple seasoning; which like the pork edged on the very salty side.

Lots of dark spotting, these had probably been frozen for a while. No off flavors, adequately moist and tender. Like the pork, just a very simple prep and straight forward flavor.

Overall, pretty much straight forward, almost fast-casual meal. There’s much better wings to be found within a mile of Cake de Partie. Prices are not bad and perhaps one day I might return to try the Zapp Wings….maybe….