Schwing? Ming!

You guys remember Cate?

Good.  Now let me introduce Sammy; an excellent friend of mine (and partner in dining-crime) at BU.  Meet Sammy:

Since we’re all acquainted, I’ll start with the storytime.

After an epic hour long journey between cars, taxis and chauffeured town cars, my parents, Sammy and her mother and I finally made it to Blue Ginger.

For those of you who don’t know; Blue Ginger is Ming Tsai’s flagship restaurant in Wellesley, Massachusetts.  Mapquest will attempt to woo you with it’s sweet lies, reporting a a quick, 20 minute drive.  That doesn’t account for rained-out Sox/Yankees games and pouring down rain.

After getting the Ritz concierge to talk to the hostess (Sammy’s mother, who I greatly enjoyed finally talking to, was staying at the Ritz), we arrived for our promptly at 9:00 for our 8:15 reservation.

We sat down immediately in the center of a packed (and oddly bright)
dining room. After deciding on cocktails (my Peach Bourbon Manhattan
was the clear winner), we ordered a slew of appetizers. All the apps
were great, my favorite being the foie gras shumai. Absolutely
delicious; not as rich as I thought it would be, however. The conch
ceviche was a bit too conch-ey for my taste, but I guess that was the
point. Thai mussels were fair, and the spring rolls came with a great 3
chili dipping sauce.

The winning entrees were the "Garlic-Black Pepper Lobster with
Lemongrass Fried Rice, Pea Tendril Salad" and the "Sake-Miso Marinated
Alaskan Butterfish" with
"Wasabi Oil, Soy Syrup and Vegetarian Soba Noodle Sushi." I didn’t get
a chance to try the scallops; I was a bit too distracted by my own
delicious food.

What made the lobster really great was that the torso of the lobster
had been emptied and filled with the lemongrass fried rice with small
chunks of lobster in it. I could taste the garlic on my breath for a
while after; you can see how of it there was in the sauce.

Butterfish is a really great name for the fish. It was a big, buttery,
tender amazing fillet. The wasabi oil rounded out the plate nicely.

Desserts were uniformly delicious. They had an interesting Hungarian
dessert wine that we tried. We had crème brulee, panna cotta and a
banana split with sorbet. (I know, sounds like an Italian restaurant,
right? Whatever. It was almost midnight, and Sammy and I had places to
be).

Overall, Blue Ginger would definitely be a place that I would
frequent more often if it wasn’t so far away. Unless you’re really
craving excellent pan-Asian, or know a shortcut (or have a helicopter);
I would recommend going once to just try it.

Full menu at Blue Ginger.

Don't be shellfish...