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Wishing Town Bakery Cafe, Metairie’s most exciting Chinese bakery and one of the area’s best dim sum destinations, opened an Orleans Parish location this week, taking over a lovely, patio-centric space formerly home to longtime coffee shop Luna Cafe.
Founders Vivi and Kevin Zheng opened the second location of Wishing Town on Thursday, March 10 at 802 Nashville Avenue, a project they’ve been working on since Summer 2021. In the few years the original bakery and cafe’s been open, first at 701 David Drive in Metairie and then in a larger location at Lakeside Plaza, Wishing Town has emerged as one of the area’s most creative shops, producing Asian desserts that aren’t typically easy to find here. Vivi’s delicate, intricate cakes and desserts include green tea, durian, and taro crepe cakes; the signature, fruit-covered Wishing Cake; gorgeous tiramisu; egg yolk puff pastries; egg tarts; and of course, custom cakes. They even made their very first king cake in 2022, an Asian milk bread style cake with coconut, pumpkin, or sweet red bean paste fillings and topped with a cream cheese glaze.
On the savory side, the cafe has also established itself as a top dim sum destination, of which there are not many — Dian Xin and Panda King being two notable exceptions. Here, an extensive array of dumplings are beautiful and interesting; varieties include pork buns; scallop and shrimp pocket dumplings; crawfish dumplings; onion and beef; crispy fried chicken dumplings; and believe it or not, many more. There are roasted octopus balls; char siu tofu pockets; and pork floss cakes; noodle dishes, salads, and spicy soups; and hot pots, fatty beef and seafood versions, that are the ultimate in comfort food.
The new location is full-service, and the Zhengs added extensive patio seating around the corner cottage, which also boasts a lovely wrap-around porch with tables. Inside, like at Luna, a handful of tables are split across two small rooms, with a dessert counter at the center.
Wishing Town, at 802 Nashville Avenue, is open daily, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and until 7 p.m. Sunday.
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