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Entries Tagged as 'Restaurants'

Even Blue Ginger is scaling back

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The Herald has a story on area chefs/restaurants reining in their New Year’s Eve menus, bubbly, etc. Blue Ginger’s Ming Tsai says:

“We’re toning it down,” said chef Ming Tsai, owner of Blue Ginger in Wellesley. “We aren’t going to bring in the extravagance of Ossetra caviar, truffles, foie gras and all of those incredibly tasty and opulent expensive items.”

Blue Ginger, which last year charged $125 for a five-course dinner, is serving four courses for $85. And, for the first time, it also will offer its regular a la carte menu.

“Even though we’re in Wellesley and surrounded by affluence, everyone - even people that still have money - are spending less,” Tsai said. “People don’t want to be viewed as tacky and gauche for spending money on a $500 bottle of wine.”

Wellesleyites have shopping advice for you

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First-time authors Alison Ross and Gay Gray will be coming all the way from….Wellesley to sign and chat about their new shopping advice book this Saturday at Wellesley Booksmith, 2-4pm. Their book, “Ally and Gaizy’s Girlfriends Guide to Great Shops and Cafes,” features “snapshots of more than 170 independently owned and family run shops and cafés in and around Boston. From fun and funky to classic and chic, you’ll be the ‘go-to’ girl with this guide.”

We double-checked with Ally about whether they took it easy on Wellesley shops and she assured us that they didn’t:  “None of the stores knew we were doing the book when we were researching.”

As for any updated shopping advice in light of the economic downturn — the book was released earlier this fall — Ross says: “Since our book is about all independently owned shops and cafés you can find some very unique items in a variety of price ranges. In these difficult economic times we feel it’s important to support your own town and shop locally, whether it’s Wellesley or Dedham or Lexington or wherever.”

If you can’t make it to the authors’ appearance on Saturday, note that on their website they say they’re also available for private parties.

Piling on the pizza in Wellesley

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A new pizza joint, Northend Wellesley-Pizza, is planning to set up shop at the east end of Washington Street, according to this Townsman report. It’s getting a bit crowded with Wellesley Hills House of Pizza and Peter’s Pizza already down that end of town.

Wellesley food news

Blue Ginger will begin opening for dinner on Sundays starting Nov. 9.

Separately, the Townsman reports that The Gelato Cafe is set to open in Linden Square this winter next to French Lessons, offering the frosty Italian treat.

Blue Ginger chef Ming Tsai shows how to make burger bings

The, secret behind making Bings, litle dumplings that are one of the highlights of Blue Ginger’s lounge menu, is revealed in this video by Channel 7 news (click on Watch the Video when you get to this site)

The story behind the story of the Wellesley Bakery & Cafe

The Globe tells the story of the family that runs the Washington St. bakery and their Cambodian roots. The bakery is now displaying photos of Cambodia from a customer who has a photography studio in town.

Wireless Wellesley

The main Wellesley Free Library has had wireless Internet access for some time, but now the Hills Branch does as well.

Speaking of which, Peet’s Coffee & Tea has added free Wi-Fi to its menu.

Susu’s chandelier

A blogger is wowed by a chandelier — in the women’s restroom — at Susu Bakery Boutique in Wellesley on Washington St. At least we don’t feel so weird about pointing out the fireplace in the men’s restroom at Town Hall now.

Food for thought

A Bostonian blogger visits Wellesley and gushes about The Cottage (“We must have been caught up with the beauty of the restaurant because we both ordered drinks.). She also takes lots of pictures of her meal.

Separately, foodies at Chowhound dish about where to get the best take-out food in Wellesley.

A hairy Blue Ginger story

We enjoy the Blue Ginger restaurant in Wellesley, though only get there about once a year. Wednesday night marked our first visit to the  newish lounge section. We figured we’d write something up about our experience and wouldn’t you know it didn’t turn out to be an ordinary visit.

The lounge is nice, with comfortable booths looking out at a funeral home, just the right lighting with overhead lamps shaped like squished pumpkins and a real buzz in the air at about 6:15pm. We were seated right away without having made reservations and ordered a couple of drinks, including a tasty Blue Ginger Gimlet, and a few items off the Lounge Menu: Shrimp-Avocado Parfait, Crab Rangoons and mushroom, duck and cheeseburger versions of Ming’s Bings (fancy new dumplings that are the lounge’s signature dish). Mrs. Swellesley enjoyed the parfait, served like a typical desert parfait glass but with shrimp on top. I liked the crispy Crab Rangoons. Then came the Bings…

I snagged the cheeseburger one: juicy and tasty. Mrs. Swellesley plucked the mushroom one and I took the duck piece (we would have ordered pork instead, but our server gave us a heads up from the start that they had run out). Anyway, as I go to slice the duck Bing in half I catch my fork on a seemingly endless hair. Determining this was not the latest culinary rage, we called our server’s attention to it. She looked mortified and took our dishes away, leaving us to ponder how the restaurant would handle this situation. After a few minutes a host swung by and apologized, assuring us nothing like this had ever happened during her time at the restaurant. Our server returned shortly thereafter with a round of drinks on the house. Somewhat unfazed, and still hungry, I then ordered shrimp sticks, which were served hairless and tasted creamy and delicious. Blue Ginger knocked the Bings off of our bill, and we went on our way. Though not before casting a suspicious eye on the busy cooking staff in the exposed kitchen.

By the way, we recently mentioned a fresh Boston Globe review of Blue Ginger. The review generated a good dose of comments from readers, who had no shortage of opinions, good and bad, about the restaurant.