After watching Ming for years on East Meets West and Simply Ming, I couldn't resist a field trip out to Wellesley on my first trip to Boston. My local hosts and I drove out about 30 minutes on a rainy Friday afternoon for lunch and found the restaurant not too crowded at all. Our waiter was very nice and responsive. This was probably due to the fact that, as I turned my head halfway through our meal, I spied Ming Tsai chatting up a table of lunching grannies. We started with the crispy calamari, which came with a delicious thai dipping sauce, and ordered the wok-stirred paella, schezuan pepper cheeseburger, and indonesian curry vegetables. We also ordered the fresh ginger ale, which was really good. It was the perfect balance of ginger, sweetness and carbonation. Definitely had to refill. All three dishes were very flavorful and the fusion flavors mixed blended together very well. I think the winner was the cheeseburger out of the 3 dishes. The roquefort cheese and pepper classed it up and made it really tasty. We even got Ming to stop by and chat a bit and take a picture. He is really the nicest guy. So the review may be biased by the latter experience, but I do think the food, while not being the best meal ever, was pretty darn good. Better than my experieces with Oliver and Collichio by far. We got away with an $80 bill for 3, which I think is pretty reasonable, and leftovers to satisfy another meal. Wish we had room for dessert. Try the restaurant for a weekday lunch to save $$ and waiting. I would definitely make another visit.
Pros: Delicious food, good service, excellent ginger ale.
Cons: A bit out of the way.
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