Just a warning, this will be a long review because I have A LOT to say about this place. First of all, I have heard a lot of things about the popular food cart "Party Cart." I had always wanted to go here because apparently they make amazing pies and have delicious locally sourced food. When I heard that they had just opened a restaurant in downtown Eugene in early May (it was mid-May when we went), I knew we just had to try this place!
The concept of this place is very interesting. The minds of two successful Eugene food carts came together and made this fusion restaurant. The "front" of this restaurant is Red Wagon Creamery, which is a very popular ice cream cart serving crazy, original flavors using almost completely locally sourced ingredients. We were originally confused because we intended on just going to Party Downtown, but hey, we got ice cream!
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"Saturday Morning"
Junior Sized [$2.25] |
Anyway, you have to walk through Red Wagon Creamery and past the Party Downtown bar to get to the eating area. The eating area had a very "hipster/chic" vibe.
We had a party of seven, so we were told to wait 15-20 minutes, we were seated in about 15. They definitely still have a lot of kinks to work out, seeing as they just opened. Accidents happened, but they were almost a freakout about whether or not we were the group that was supposed to be sitting at the table they put us on.
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| Menu |
By the way the menu was arranged on the wall (on removable chalkboards), I am assuming that the menu changes daily. Also, when they run out of items, the chalkboard is taken down. By the end of our meal, there were about 4-5 boards taken down.
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| House Bread [$3.50] |
We starts with the "House Bread" which was pretty good! There were three different varieties of their bread totaling 9 slices. This was a good little appetizer, but some of the bread was really dry. On the bright side, the honey was surprisingly sweet. Now, here's where my review kind of goes south. I can understand that they are a new restaurant, but the food took YEARS to come out. I am not exaggerating when I say that it took at least an hour. The food also came out at very spread apart times, so the first person wanted to wait to eat their food, but by the time everyone else got their food, her food was cold. I know that was on our own accord, but the food should have come out around the same time.
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| Flank Steak [$13.00] |
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| Turkey Leg Confit/Gnocchi (small) [$8.00] |
We ordered other food, but due to the dim lighting I wasn't able to snap really good photos of them. Orders included the "Pickled Filipino Sausage with Dirty Wild Rice," "Sweet Pea Honey Pot de Creme," and "Spinach Artichoke Dip." The sausage dish was really good because they make the sausages in house! The food was okay, nothing to hate, nothing to love. I love the concept of being locally sourced, but the portions were a little TOO small. As much as I love the idea of paying for experience, this place wasn't memorable enough to make me want to pay $8.00 for a little dish. However, I am glad that I went to this place at least once in my life, just because the idea behind it is so neat. I guess it also didn't help that my friends were complaining like no other about the size, price, and everything. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable.
I would recommend this place if you are into the whole "fresh and locally sourced" fad because that's exactly what it is. However, if you want a lot of food and are on a budget, I would not recommend. If you are like me and in between, it's good for a one time deal, but DO NOT be expecting to get full off this meal. I am excited to see how this restaurant will blossom.
