I was skeptical of wild ginger (if you’ve read some of my previous reviews, i’m pretty fussy about asian fusion dining), but I have to say that wild ginger exceeded expectations.
I’ll start with the service. Our waitress at first seemed to be a little hippy chicky, which surprised me for being an upscale dining establishment, but she proved over the course of the night that she was a good waitress and knew the menu well. this was also the first time that i’ve had a server inquire about potential food allergies – i don’t have any, but i thought this was absolutely great, since a lot of people would be allergic to many of the ingredients used in these dishes.
Now, the food. All the food was flavorful, well-executed, and unique. The dishes are Asian-inspired, with a lot of Chinese and Southeast Asian flavors. The menu had extremely extensive choices – there’s a regular menu, and in addition to the regular menu, there were about 20 more choices! The dishes are meant to be shared family-style. My dinner companions didn’t seem to really agree with my taste in food, so i didn’t really get to try anything that i wanted to try, but everything we ordered was good, and there were even some greats in there. my favorite dish by far was the Seven Flavor Beef – tender and tasty, everything about this beef was perfect. I also really enjoyed the noodle dish, though I can’t remember which one it was… the catfish and prawns were good, as was the coconut gelato for dessert.
The one big negative about Wild Ginger is that the dishes are rather small for the price , so this probably isn’t a great place to go if you don’t have cash to burn (but perfect if you’re on work expenses!).
Overall, if I every stayed in downtown Seattle, I’d come here again. It’s definitely the best place I’ve found so far within walking distance of the downtown hotels.
jwbnyc
01/23/2007For quick walks from the downtown hotels, the Tom Douglas restaurants are good choices for northwest fare, though I’m partial to the new 94 Stewart. For Asian fusion, I like Noodle Ranch. It’s true they’re all a bit further from the hotels than Wild Ginger.