Blue Ginger

I took my very last personal day off of work yesterday to make the drive to my college and pick up all my work from the whole semester. As some of you might remember, my teacher held everything and told us he'd drop it off at the school a week or two after class finished. We could "swing by" the Continuing Ed office to pick it up. (They're supposed to hang onto it for up to one year.) However, me "swinging by" entails a one hour, 15 minute ride...if I hit no traffic. I certainly was in no mood to drive down, turn around, and drive back up. I figured I'd make a day of it and hang around the City, so the hubby also took the day off as did hubby's friend, T.

Once we arrived, I made my way to the office. The folks at the front desk pointed to a very small pile in the corner and told me that's where all the left over spring semester projects were. It didn't take very much digging for me to realize that there was NOTHING from my class in there. Plus, everything was labeled "Drawing for Communication" and not "Typography". I inquired again at the front desk where the typography class work was. The guy looked at me blankly, and said, "Everything we have is in that pile." Grrrr. I left empty-handed and angry. My teacher better still have my semester's worth of work. I will be furious if the 300 artist business cards I collected have been lost in the black hole that is Mass Art. Not to mention all the layouts and logotypes I busted my butt creating all semester. Fifteen weeks of work. Gone. (Yes, I e-mailed my teacher this morning about it. Cross your fingers that he can provide me with some sort of explanation.)

T., hubs, and I decided to make our way to the Museum of Fine Art since we were already at that end of town. We got there only to find that it closed at 5:00 on Mondays. ARG! Boston = a total bust.

The next half of this blog is rather uncharacteristic of me, in that I'm going to blab for a loooong time about food...because I had the most amazing meal EVER last night. So, if you're not interested, I give you permission to cut out now.

The three of us had reservations for 7 at Blue Ginger in Wellesley, and decided to head over early.

T. works there, and was taking me and the hubby to the restaurant as a wedding/anniversary gift. We hit rush-hour traffic and wound up arriving around 6-6:30.

Blue Ginger is owned and run by celebrity chef, Ming Tsai. He used to host the Emmy Award-winning show East Meets West on the Food Network, he was on Iron Chef, and he now hosts Ming's Quest on the Fine Living Network as well as Simply Ming on PBS.

T. gave us a tour, and introduced us to everyone. We sat at the bar where the boys ordered beer and I ordered a Fuji Apple Martini. Mmmm. We figured we'd get some crab Rangoon to munch on while we waited. They brought us both the Rangoon AND an order of shrimp sticks--with a wink to T. And thus began our 4 hour, 6 course dinner. You heard me correctly.

When we were seated at our table for dinner, we ordered a bottle of wine and a couple appetisers--calamari and an order of foie gras-Shiitake shumai (on T.'s recommendation). We munched on our little bread/cracker basket while we waited. Then, they brought us our appetizers...and a little bonus...an order of muscles in a lovely sauce with grape tomatoes. Oh. My. God. SooOOoo good.

Minutes later, the waitress comes back with a little "amuse bouche" (a little taster) which was some sort of chicken dumpling. One each. I could see they were absolutely spoiling us because T. had brought us as his guests. Clearly, we had an "in". Lol.

We turn around at our table, and who is actually working at the restaurant that night but Ming himself! T. introduced us, and a few minutes later, Ming pops over to our table to chat a little and to give each of us a "butter taster". It was a little marinated piece of butterfish and two pieces of sushi. Everything was so light and flavorful...I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it was. Plus, since T. is one of the cooks he was able to explain to us what was in each dish and what the different textures were.

Ming also came over to make sure everything was up to par. I was laughing later with my husband about it. Like, who are we? We're nobody! We ate at Bugaboo Creek last week! This place is far above and beyond our standards. Yet he treated us like we were important, and made sure we enjoyed our meal.

Then dinner came. And a second bottle of wine. I had a gorgeous curried pasta with Asian vegetables and coconut shrimp which I could barely make a dent in because by then, I'd been grazing for THREE HOURS. Dinner got boxed up and carried home with me. But it didn't stop us from ordering coffees and one dessert to split. I think we ordered a sesame macadamia caramel nut tart. They brought us FOUR desserts off the menu. And the tart had a delicate lemon cookie leaning against it with "Happy Anniversary" scripted in a frosting on the front and a little candle burning on the side. I was so contented, I thought I was going to die.

The kicker? With T.'s employee discount, pretty much all that we owed at the end were tips to the waitstaff. Just to give you an idea of how insane that is, our two bottles of wine alone (not counting a single scrap of food or our pre-dinner cocktails) would've come out to about $110... so you can only imagine what a full dinner of that caliber would've cost us sans T's hospitality.

My hubby and I couldn't stop talking about how amazing the food was or how fabulous the service was...even after we got home! I was convinced I was going to die of food happiness in my sleep because I'm pretty sure they don't feed you that well unless you're heading to the gallows. Lol. For any of you who ever find yourself in Wellesley MA with some money to burn, go to Blue Ginger! The decor, the staff, and the food are all fantastic. I cannot reccomend it highly enough.

A big enormous THANK YOU to T. for the amazing culinary experience, good company, and a lovely time all around. *Hugs*