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Wild Ginger, a closer look
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Aloha!
3/5/10 - Jack of all trades, master of none? Well, judging on other reviews of Wild Ginger in Kaimuki, both personal and professional, covering one too many bases seems to be the biggest problem everyone has with the place. I mean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, take your pick! Tamarind salad, kung pao beef, seafood sambal, tom yum soup, shrimp satay, XO seabass, even good ol' beef broccoli, roast duck, and lemon chicken! Some choices even seem to have a Pacific Rim flair, not really falling into any one category of food, such as their garlic wine seafood, grilled crusted salmon, spicy mango delight with meat type of your choice, and a Chef Special stir-fry with soft-shell crab and dry garlic - all names you could easily see in any Hawaii Regional Cuisine restaurant, yes?
But isn't variety the spice of life? Their ginger glaze sauce, served over whatever meat you so desire, is described as a Japanese sushi ginger and soy sauce, and they even carry a dish of garlic chicken, beef, jumbo shrimp, macadamia nut, and a bevy of veggies, called, you guessed it - a Royal Hawaii! Spectacular!
Up or down, front to back, side to side, I don't know where to begin today, but I suppose maybe we'll start with... parking???
Yes, I am serious. Wild Ginger is located on the corner of Waialae and 9th Ave's, right across the street from Chef Ed Kenney's Town restaurant. Anyone remember 9th Avenue Drive-Inn, with their double teri cheeseburgers, after a night of clubbing?
Anyways, parking can be found on Waialae, but a safer bet is turning on-to 9th Ave. Look to your left, just past the little open-market-looking shop, where parking is completely free.
That open market-there's a cool place to check out, too - lots of fresh fruits, veggies, flowers, and knick-knacks to sniff and peruse through:
Aaaand, a couple of entrance shots from either angle, though it's not like you haven't figured it out yet!
Looks a little dingy from the outside, but doesn't just about everything fronting Waialae Avenue look so? Old neighborhood, you know... Inside, however, the scenery takes a turn for the positive, into something perhaps in line with one of your better Thai or Chinese restaurants. It ain't the Imperial Palace or anything, but it's always good to enter a clean, modern dining room with fresh linen, nice silverware, shiny-white plates, and pressed napkins. Though several tables were soon to be taken, upon entering, I had free reign with the camera on this particularly lovely weekday afternoon:
Our waitress was kind and friendly, taking orders patiently and suggesting a few things along the way. As mentioned, deciding from such a wide variety of menu choices here at Wild Ginger does take a little more thinking than your average restaurant. Even so, no worries - it's not that bad. I mean, mostly, it's a tug-of-war between Chinese and Thai. Everything else is pretty much of little consequence, with only shades and hints of the different ethnic varieties I've already mentioned.
From a small starter section of dishes like summer rolls, crispy wonton, spring rolls, pork lettuce wraps, pot stickers, and satay skewers, mom selected the remaining choice, a platter of deep-fried calamari:
A familiar face, Mae Ploy sweet chili, was the sauce presented alongside, while a soft bed of red leaf lettuce held the airy-light pieces of calamari on-top. Airy-light is the operating word here. If there were ever such a thing as thin squid chips that went poof, expanding instantly upon contact with hot oil, like popcorn or, better yet, raw shrimp chips (do they still sell those things?), this would be it. That's how light they were. Yeah, that is a good thing. They were delicious.
My little nephew is highly allergic to wheat, so that pretty much rules out any type of noodle except for one - rice noodles. Luckily, this is an Asian spot, so we had a couple of options. Instead of pad thai, my brother was very interested in trying a Singapore mai fun for the very first time:
Again, delicious. One of the better varieties I've had anywhere. It had the right amount of wok-charred taste, while the noodles were perfectly done to a light, firm, almost crunchy consistency. Small bits of veggies added another crisp, snappy element, and whole shrimp pieces were not the largest each, but were tasty and given in generous numbers. Though called Singapore mai fun, you'll find the dish available at just about any Chinese restaurant on the island.
One of the specialties here at Wild Ginger is a sambal, which can be served with meat or seafood type of your choice or as one of their Chefs' selection specials, with marinated jumbo shrimp, scallops, calamari, button mushroom, onion, asparagus, and green and red bell peppers. Ours was a simpler variety, with beef:
Described on the menu as ground shrimp and spices in spicy sauce, sambal is a dish popular throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and several other countries around the area. Though spices are the common thread in any sambal, use of ground shrimp is only one of many different varieties, others featuring young mango, kaffir lime, tomatoes, fish, and meats, to name just a few.
Expecting something spicy, the above dish brought nothing to the table as far as heat was concerned, while the taste, despite looking like you'd need a Sumotori-sized bowl of rice to mellow-down just your portion, was surprisingly on the bland side. I dunno, to me, it was like a combination of fish sauce, oyster sauce, and shoyu (though it wasn't!), only watered-down. I think the hefty infusion of more chili peppers would have done the dish much good.
And finally, check out this serving of sesame chicken:
Unlike our first three dishes, which were all light or at least relatively light, this one was a local-boy special, meaning, in-your-face, all the way! I'm sure those chicken pieces under there were perfectly fine in and of themselves, but that sauce was about as heavy and strong as it gets, with salty, sour, and super-sweet flavors overwhelming the palate like a school of hungry manini on an algae-covered coral head. Now, this is where your bowl of starchy-white rice will come in handy, lemme tell ya!
But don't think I'm totally rejecting it. I'm not. Not really. It does hold some promise for those into these kinds of full-flavored dishes. I was ok on the first three or four pieces, but beyond that, it started reminding me more of pure ketchup and lots of sugar, reduced for a time over a low fire! Maybe as a pupu with drinks? It is byob here, after all.
But anyhow, Wild Ginger in Kaimuki does show some promise for me. Their stir-fry's were surprisingly non-greasy, no doubt flash-cooked over a hot wok, as they should be, leaving behind the pleasant taste of a controlled fire as well as crispy vegetables that any hard-core vegan could appreciate. Yes, there is that whole scizophrenia thing, which may get the best of ya. I mean, I can follow-along with the argument saying if you want Chinese, go to a Chinese restaurant; if you want Thai, hit-up Siam Garden, Mekong, or any of the other great Thai restaurants on the island. And who wants pad thai and coconut milk-infused curries with lemon chicken and beef broccoli?
You don't have to get all confused, though. It's just different seeing such items on a single menu, that's all. Four Kings, right down the street, does the same thing, only with Japanese and Vietnamese. Sushi with pho? Yup! And how 'bout Ciao Mein, with their Chinese and Italian? Both work extremely well, so why not here, too? Speaking of fusion, anyone check out the new creation Sake Street? Some funky things going-on there, lemme tell ya! After a quick visit recently, I'm still trying to make sense of it all, so a second visit is in the works.
Meanwhile, keep expanding your tummy as well as your mind by checking out as many new spots as possible! And I'll see y'all soon!
Take care, and Aloha till next time!
Aku
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