As you may know, Blue Ginger is closing. The Wellesley restaurant, owned by Ming Tsai, has been know for its allergen free dining (gluten free and nut free dishes). Blue Ginger was coming to the end of their lease, and after nearly 2 decades of business, Tsai has decided to close the restaurant and prepare to launch a new restaurant, Chow Stirs, a fast casual concept restaurant. The last day of service is June 3rd, and on the 4th they will hold a yard sale in the parking lot starting at 9am. Part of the proceeds will go to Family Reach, an organization providing a financial lifeline to families fighting cancer.

Blue Ginger stopped serving lunch and only offered dinner (starting at 4pm) so the staff could focus on providing excellent dinner service. When we went, the service was spotty at best, as the restaurant was slammed with patrons wanting to get one last taste of Blue Ginger.

Jodi and Kim put the evening together, and I’m glad they did. I’m sorry to say that I had only ever been to Blue Ginger once before, and that was for take out. The food we had that night was delicious. We started with the shiitake leek spring rolls and they bigeye tuna poke. We had $41 sake miso marinated sablefish (butterfish) with wasabi oil, soy lime syrup, and vegetarian soba noodle sushi. The Korean rice cake with shiitake mushroom ragu ($26) was very interesting – quite flavorful. I loved the different textures in the dish and the richness of the mushrooms.

I never get the creme brûlée but nothing else spoke to me on the dessert menu, so vanilla bean creme brûlée it was. Not bad – and it came with two cookies that were tasty.

So goodbye Blue Ginger, looking forward to trying Chow Stirs in 2018!

Blue Ginger

583 Washington Street, Wellesley, MA

https://www.ming.com/blue-ginger.htm

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The ladies and I had been dying to try out Juniper in Wellesley. I love Sweet Basil in Needham and Juniper is Dave Becker’s second venture, a Mediterranean restaurant that opened in 2014. In addition to being a restaurant owner, Becker is also a potter. He makes unique dinnerware that is used in both Sweet Basil and at Juniper.

We start with the roasted cauliflower salad ($13) curry vinaigrette, arugula, spiced chickpeas, olives, toasted pine nuts and red onion (pictured top right). I love roasted cauliflower, it had a rich, warm flavor. A perfect start to our meal.

(Pictured left) They have a nice selection of dips and spreads (served with yummy flatbread), you can order them for $6 each or 3 for $15: muhummara (red pepper and walnut), matbucha (tomato, red bell peppers,  garlic and chili pepper), tzatsiki (yogurt, cucumber and garlic), hummus (chick peas, tahini, olive oil), skordalia (potato and garlic), and baba ghanouj (eggplant and tahina).

(Pictured bottom right) I HAD to try the lamb bolognese ($16) saffron pasta, roasted tomato sauce, chili oil and yogurt. A totally different flavor profile than traditional bolognese, but every bit as tasty. This dish has comfort food written all over it, perfect for cold New England days.

The restaurants generally only open for dinner service on Sundays. This Sunday, January 8th, for one day only, they will be opening their doors for brunch with a special guest chef, Avi Shemtov, of The Chubby Chickpea. He will be preparing a Middle Eastern-inspired brunch, including his signature Shakshuka from 11:30am – 2:30pm. Call the restaurant for reservations. If you can’t make it in for this special pop up, make sure to try it out for lunch or dinner at another time, the food was delicious.

Service was excellent, we were there for a weekday lunch. Parking is on street at meters.

Juniper 

13 Central Street, Wellesley, MA

http://www.juniperwellesley.com

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Right before the holidays I was invited to a blogger dinner at The Cottage in Wellesley to showcase the restaurant and the shops that are close by. We ate in the private room in the back of the restaurant. The table was beautifully decorated with linens from Bonsoir, a store that sells luxury linens from France, Italy and the US.

We started off with a sampling of appetizers, the beef tenderloin crostini and the mini crab cakes. The beef tenderloin was served with a whipped goat cheese spread, homemade sweet onion jam and placed on a piece of ciabatta crostini. The mini crab cakes were served with a basil vinaigrette and placed on a bed of roasted corn and frisee salad.

The goat cheese salad was served with caramelized walnuts, roasted red peppers, and topped with a light balsamic vinaigrette.

One of my favorite dishes of the night was the lamb bolognese that was topped with some fresh local ricotta. The dish was a winter comfort dish with cumin undertones.

The chicken milanese was served with a shaved fennel and arugula salad and topped with a lemon thyme vinaigrette.

The mahi fish tacos were served with guacamole, napa cabbage, pico de gallo, and cottage baja sauce. It was served in two corn tortillas and had a side of papaya salsa.

The trio of desserts included a chocolate souffle cake, white chocolate raspberry bread pudding and a cheesecake.

The different shops at Linden Square had tables showcasing their products. For a full list of shops, check out the Linden Square website. How amazing is this statement necklace from Impulse? They have the latest in fashion forward jewelry. See their website here.

There were some great outfits showcased by Sara Campbell, Kenzie and Tiny Hanger. Tiny Hanger is one of my favorite stores for kid’s clothing – they have some pretty adorable things.

Have a fur baby? Check out Unleashed by PETCO. Since I was the only one with a cat, I took home some pretty cute toys and treats – although my cat is so old and grumpy when I showed them to him he just glared at me….

Yup, he can’t be bothered…

Another fabulous part of this evening was a manicure at Bella Sante. Located just above The Cottage, the spa was much more spacious that I had originally thought it would be. I was running late for the dinner, but they still managed to squeeze me in! Laura did a fabulous job on my nails and they lasted a whole week, which for me is huge – usually by day 3 I manage to destroy my nails.

Disclaimer: I was invited to The Cottage as a guest for this special holiday dinner. My meal was provided complimentary, as well as my manicure at Bella Sante. In addition, I received gift bag with discounts and gift cards to the shops at Linden Square for attending. All opinions are my own.

The Cottage

190 Linden Street, Wellesley, MA

http://www.cottagewellesley.com

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The Patty Melt  ($12) angus beef (cooked medium), caramelized onions, thousand island, melted cheddar cheese,  on sourdough parmesan cheese toast. Hold the thousand island for me. The first thing that you notice when the patty melt comes is the wonderful smell of the parmesan bread. It has my mouth watering. I love all the pieces of this sandwich individually and love them all put together. The beef is cooked perfectly medium with a cool pink center, the onions have sweetened up and the cheese is so super sharp. The fries are crisp and crunchy. The downside to this sandwich was that it was a little bit drippy and greasy, but that being said, I enjoyed every bite of it!

The Short Rib Sliders  ($13) with smoked cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, and sweet potato fries. Sliders are SO in aren’t they? These were pretty good. I love a good short rib, the meat was really tender but lacked flavor, I think that they were counting on the onions and the cheese to carry them-and while they do add a good flavor, I feel like the meat should have a really good flavor as well-they were just a little bland for me. The buns that they were on were lightly toasted and held together nicely.

The service was just ok this time, but we still plan on going back again, perhaps this time for brunch because I got the inside tip from one of my twitter followers @commuterwatch that the mashed potato omelette is where it’s at.

To see my previous review of the Cottage, click here.

The Cottage

190 Linden Street Wellesley

781.239.1100

http://www.cottagewellesley.com/

hours

monday – thursday  11:30am – 10:00pm

friday & saturday  11:30am – 10:30pm

sunday  9:00am – 9:00pm

sunday brunch  9:00am – 2:00pm

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We ordered one house pork miso and one house chicken miso. Neither of us were daring enough to get the spicy miso….

The pork miso

The chicken miso. The miso soup had this great smokey flavor to it-and here’s what I love about this dish-they didn’t skimp on the noodles. The chicken was sliced extra thin and you could see the spice rub around the edges-really great flavor. I wish there had been a bit more chicken, but overall, the dish was satisfying…and there was even some left over!

Blue Ginger

583 Washington Street (Route 16), west of Wellesley Center. Wellesley, MA

http://www.ming.com/blueginger.htm

Our Noodle Bar menu is available: Monday – Friday, 11:30pm – 2:00pm

Ramen Noodle Soups
Served with Jicama, Chinese broccoli, bean sprouts and scallions

House Miso Ramen
White Miso and Caramelized Onion Broth with Sliced Pork or Chicken

Spicy Pork Miso Ramen
Red Miso and Sambal Broth with Spicy Ground Pork and Sliced Pork

Stir Fried Noodles
Served with carrot, bell pepper, onion, cabbage and scallions with Shrimp or Chicken

Yakisoba
Ramen Noodles and Garlic-Ginger-Tamari Sauce

Pad Thai
Rice Noodles, Scrambled Egg, Tamarind Sauce and Peanuts

Indonesian Curry
Shanghai Noodles, House Curry Paste and Peanuts

Noodles are all served with house pickles

All $12.00

Available for Take-Out – 781-283-5790

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The store can be hard to find, there’s a narrow driveway, you have to park down back and go into an office building to find the small shop. There weren’t a lot of choices available when we went in one weekend. They had a few choices in the case and red velvet and carrot in the back. When I had looked online at the menu they had some exciting specialty flavors: chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, and white hot chocolate. We decide to try the vanilla with vanilla frosting, the red velvet, and the carrot cake.

The vanilla cupcake’s cake was dry. The frosting had a good flavor but it was hard on the outside (which can sometimes be from sitting out for a long time).

The red velvet was too dense. I just felt like there wasn’t enough frosting on the cupcake-for me, there has to be a good frosting to cake ratio.

The carrot cake was the best cupcake of the lot. It had great flavor and tasty spices. I loved the cream cheese frosting. It was ok, but not good enough to win over this cupcake connoisseur!

5 Bites Cupcakes

141 Linden Street  Suite 2c Wellesley MA

http://5bitescupcakes.com/

Closed Sunday and Monday; Tues-Fri 11-6 (please call to confirm); Sat 9-4

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Some of my favorite cheeses that I get are:

The house brie. A great soft cheese made from cow’s milk. It is wonderfully smooth and creamy.

Piave Vecchio. Another  cheese made from cow’s milk, it is Italian and a hard cheese. It has a wonderful nutty taste to it.

The cheese spreads are delicious too! You just can’t go wrong here, they have something for everyone.

Wasik’s Cheese Shop

http://www.wasiks.com/

61 Central Street, Wellesley MA 02482. 781-237-0916. Cheeseshop@wasiks.com
Monday, 10am – 5pm | Tuesday thru Saturday, 9am – 6pm | Sunday, Closed

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