Blue Ginger
A few years ago, Jason and I had an amusingly bad experience at Blue Ginger. I said at the time that I hoped to go back sometime that wasn't Valentine's Day and that idea came up again recently. So when challenged to surprise me with a plan for my birthday, Jason cleverly made reservations there.
Once again, the food was very good. Without peeking at our previous choices, I started with the poke again--it's still great--and Jason chose the sablefish for his main. He started with a hamachi sashimi plate this time--good, though a little sweeter than my ideal--and I tried the garlic-black pepper lobster over lemongrass rice, with spinach. The flavors were strong, savory and delicious, although the handful of raw baby spinach simply thrown on top of the dish felt like an afterthought, rather than an integrated part of the dish's flavor profile. We split a bottle of 2014 Astrolabe Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand--a very nice one that paired well with our food. For dessert we shared the ginger molasses cake with sweet five spice poached pears and sparkling pear sorbet, and the creme brulee that was supposed to come with cookies, only they'd run out of cookies and were baking more, so gave us a chocolate truffle coated in black sesame and a cube ginger-pomegranate gelee, both of which made Jason happy but were right up Not My Thing alley.
Unfortunately, while the food really is quite tasty and reasonably inventive, the service continues to be lacking. I can only presume that since no one can afford to live in Wellesley on waitstaff wages, they're stuck with whomever they can lure into commuting out there and just can't get the top drawer servers. It's not bad service exactly--ok, they did forget to give us bread and they made refilling our water glasses very obtrusive, there were no cookies, and the servers' manner ranged from obsequious to sullen without passing through Pleasantville, but there's nothing really unforgivable in that. It's just not fine dining service. The dining room is also overcrowded even when it's not V-Day, noisy, and bland in its decoration.
Overall, I'd say this is not a bad dinner out, but it just doesn't have the feel of a special occasion place. All Seasons' Table does a far wider range of slightly better dishes in a similar vein for half the price with better service and they're half as far from our house. I won't bother to make the trek to Blue Ginger again.
Once again, the food was very good. Without peeking at our previous choices, I started with the poke again--it's still great--and Jason chose the sablefish for his main. He started with a hamachi sashimi plate this time--good, though a little sweeter than my ideal--and I tried the garlic-black pepper lobster over lemongrass rice, with spinach. The flavors were strong, savory and delicious, although the handful of raw baby spinach simply thrown on top of the dish felt like an afterthought, rather than an integrated part of the dish's flavor profile. We split a bottle of 2014 Astrolabe Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand--a very nice one that paired well with our food. For dessert we shared the ginger molasses cake with sweet five spice poached pears and sparkling pear sorbet, and the creme brulee that was supposed to come with cookies, only they'd run out of cookies and were baking more, so gave us a chocolate truffle coated in black sesame and a cube ginger-pomegranate gelee, both of which made Jason happy but were right up Not My Thing alley.
Unfortunately, while the food really is quite tasty and reasonably inventive, the service continues to be lacking. I can only presume that since no one can afford to live in Wellesley on waitstaff wages, they're stuck with whomever they can lure into commuting out there and just can't get the top drawer servers. It's not bad service exactly--ok, they did forget to give us bread and they made refilling our water glasses very obtrusive, there were no cookies, and the servers' manner ranged from obsequious to sullen without passing through Pleasantville, but there's nothing really unforgivable in that. It's just not fine dining service. The dining room is also overcrowded even when it's not V-Day, noisy, and bland in its decoration.
Overall, I'd say this is not a bad dinner out, but it just doesn't have the feel of a special occasion place. All Seasons' Table does a far wider range of slightly better dishes in a similar vein for half the price with better service and they're half as far from our house. I won't bother to make the trek to Blue Ginger again.