Ming Tsai

Reviews

Boston Magazine
August 2008
Boston Magazine's 2008 Best of Boston® Award
Best Restaurant, General Excellence, West

"A dinner at Blue Ginger today is as dynamic as it was a decade ago; the trademark East-West flavor fusion as fresh and revelatory as ever. The only changes here are the kind we applaud, as Blue Ginger completed a gorgeous renovation this spring that nearly doubled its space and added private dining rooms, a walk-in lounge, and a (bargain-priced!) bar menu..."

The James Beard Foundation Awards
May 6, 2002
Ming Tsai: Best Chef Northeast

Chefs who have set new or consistent standards of excellence in their respective regions. Chefs may be from any kind of dining establishment and must have been a working chef for at least five years. The three most recent years must have been spent in the region where the chef is presently working.

Zagat Restaurant Survey
Boston 2002 - 2007
Blue Ginger, 2nd Most Popular Restaurant
"Rising above the fusion fray, chef-owner Ming Tsai sets the standard for East-meets-West cuisine with a transcendent menu that more than lives up to the buzz; no wonder its immensely challenging to get a reservation - even diners from Boston do the reverse commute to this sleek suburban phenomenon where it's so perpetually packed wall-to-wall, that you may have to beg to be waited on; though skeptics insist that in LA, it'd be no big deal, plenty of groupies only hope that the Ming dynasty continues to reign in Wellesley."

Boston Magazine
The Best of Boston 1998 Restaurant,
New Suburban
Blue Ginger

"Asian-influenced fusion cuisine has made it to the suburbs. This time around, it is being done with intelligence, restraint, and style, in this case by Ming Tsai, a Yale-educated, French-trained Chinese chef who was a pacesetter in San Francisco and Santa Fe before coming East. Star of a 40-part series on the TV Food Network, Tsai mixes Western (mainly French) and Eastern (mostly Chinese, with a little Japanese thrown in). The resulting dishes, like the fabulous Long Island duck breast marinated with achiote pepper, candied ginger, thyme and garlic, should be enough to get even the most devoted urbanite to venture out to Wellesley. "

Esquire Magazine
The Best New Restaurants of 1998
Ming Tsai of Blue Ginger
Chef of the Year
By John Mariani

"My palate had overdosed by the time I sat down at Blue Ginger. But then I ate chef Ming Tsai's tuna carpaccio with crispy rice cake and felt a shimmer on the tongue. I followed it with his foie-gras-stuffed dim sum in a caramelized-onion broth and there were signs of life in my mouth. Then I had a sake-and-miso-marinated Chilean sea bass with a kick of wasabi oil and my mouth was alive. I realized I was eating food I'd never tasted before. I'd certainly eaten similar dishes, and I was familiar with all the ingredients, like kaffir lime and jasmine rice. But never had I seen them combined with such savvy. At Blue Ginger, I enjoyed one of those meals that reminded me how great chefs can refine ideas the way great musicians refine a riff or interpret a sonata."