Blue Ginger
583 Washington St.
Wellesley, MA 02482
781-283-5790
Since opening its doors in 1998, Blue Ginger has been impressing diners from Boston and beyond with its harmonious combination of East and West. Designed by Ming and Polly Tsai in conjunction with a Feng Shui Master, the restaurant features an open kitchen, warm cherry woodwork, Italian granite floors and a soothing water sculpture. Diners can enjoy the theater of the open kitchen or focus purely on the innovative and East-West cuisine, which has earned Blue Ginger high praise from the Boston Globe, Esquire, Boston Magazine and the James Beard Foundation, which named Tsai 2002’s Best Chef Northeast.
Stop and Sip the Rosé at Blue Ginger
Head for Blue Ginger on Monday, May 21st when the wines of Chateau D'Esclans take center stage.
Cooking Live
Join Ming Tsai as he gathers a gaggle of his chefly friends for an evening of - what else - cooking.
Knights Bridge at the Round Table
Sip through the wines of California when Blue Ginger hosts the Knights Bridge folks for a special wine dinner.
Michele Fadden
Pastry Chef at Blue Ginger
Although she'd always enjoyed desserts and cooking with her family -- her first job was packaging breads and cinnamon buns at the local grocery store bakeshop - Pastry Chef Michele Fadden didn't consider a career in cooking. While in college studying education, she tagged along with her mother to a chocolate class at a local university, and something clicked. "I remember thinking, 'Hey, I like this. I could do this. So, then it was just a question of the next step.'" That next step was enrolling in the Culinary Institute of America's pastry program.
Upon graduation from the Culinary Institute of America with a degree in pastry arts, Chef Fadden returned to her home state of Pennsylvania and began working as a pastry cook at the area's local high-end hotel, which housed several restaurants. Fadden honed her bread-baking skills and learned the finesse and focus needed to serve high-volume establishments, laying the foundation for her work at Blue Ginger.
Relocating to Boston, Fadden took a job at Via Matta as Garde Manger, moving on to pastry cook after six months. There she experienced, for the first time, the schedule a busy restaurant keeps -- a year of fast-paced plating and long hours brought her up to speed with the busy Boston restaurant scene.
In July of 2003, Fadden answered an ad for Assistant Pastry Chef at Blue Ginger. She interviewed with opening Pastry Chef Marina Brancely, and went through rounds of interviews, trailing, and a particularly stressful dish presentation to Chef Tsai. "One of the desserts I was making had this fresh cherry covered in chocolate, and Marina, I think wanting to help me out, told me that Chef didn't usually care for fruit and chocolate together. But, I thought, 'This is the dish, I can't change it now. I'll just make it the best I can and see what he thinks.' And, sure enough, he looked at it skeptically, but, in the end, admitted that he liked it. After that, I was hired."
From her first day, she learned just how full-service Blue Ginger's pastry department is: every week involves not only prepping and plating desserts, but also making the various breads and crackers for the bread basket, turning the multiple flavors of ice cream, assisting with developing new menu items and managing the staff of pastry cooks.
In January 2006, Fadden assumed the role of Pastry Chef. In her short tenure, she has earned accolades from press and public and traveled with Chef Tsai to the Sundance Film Festival, California and Hawaii. Fadden's dessert menu reflects the Blue Ginger aesthetic, harmoniously blending East and West, always seasonal and ever-changing.
Chef Fadden lives in Boston with her husband and their cat.
- Aïoli
- 1. noun A blend of ail (garlic) and oli (oil) in the parlance of the Provence region of southern France. Around here, we'd call it a garlic mayonnaise.
- Ancho chile
- 1. noun The reddish brown, dried version of a poblano chile. Generally mild but can pack a punch.
- Carpaccio
- 1. noun Wafer-thin slices of raw beef served cold; named after the Renaissance Venetian painter.
- Charcuterie
- 1. noun The French term for delicatessen-style items.
- Chorizo
- 1. noun Crumbly, spiced pork sausage.
- Confit
- 1. noun Meat (usually goose, duck or pork) that is slowly cooked in its own fat and preserved with the fat packed around it as a seal.
- Coulis
- 1. noun A thick puree or sauce.
- Couscous
- 1. noun Granular semolina popular in North Africa.
- Emulsion
- 1. noun The mixture of two liquids that cannot normally combine smoothly (e.g., oil and water). Mayonnaise and hollandaise are two familiar emulsions.
- Foie gras
- 1. noun Expensive, silk-textured goose or duck liver that has been enlarged by a process you don't want to read about if you're going to eat this dish.
- Ganache
- 1. noun A rich mixture of chocolate and crème fraîche frequently used as a filling for cakes.
- Jicama
- 1. noun Used in Latin American cooking, jicama is a member of the potato family. The bulbous, brown root has a thin brown skin and crunchy and sweet white flesh.
- Lemongrass
- 1. noun A lemon-scented herb used liberally in Thai and Cambodian cooking.
- Mascarpone
- 1. noun Ultra-rich, soft cheese known best for its role in tiramisu.
- Panko
- 1. noun Coarse breadcrumbs used in Japanese cooking.
- Panna cotta
- 1. noun Egg-less Italian custard.
- Pilaf
- 1. noun A seasoned rice or other grain dish in which the rice is sautéed before the liquid and other ingredients are added.
- Quinoa
- 1. noun These small, round, pale-brown grains look similar to millet and have a mild taste and a firm texture. Quinoa is considered a complete protein because it contains all eight essential amino acids.
- Rémoulade
- 1. noun A cold mayonnaise sauce flavored with mustard, gherkins, capers, anchovies and herbs.
- Rillettes
- 1. noun Meat, usually pork, slowly cooked in seasoned fat and made into a smooth paste, then packed and sealed with a thin layer of fat. Served cold.
- Risotto
- 1. noun Italian dish made from rice cooked by intermittently adding small amounts of stock or broth. Other ingredients are added as required.
- Shank
- 1. noun The front leg of beef, pork, veal or lamb. Often a very tough cut of meat, the shank requires slow-cooking methods like braising.
- Shiitake
- 1. noun Bold and meaty, these are called "black mushrooms" on Chinese menus.
- Shumai
- 1. noun Filled Chinese dumplings that look like tiny, just-opening flower buds.
- Tamarind
- 1. noun A bittersweet spice made by drying and pressing the pulp from the fruit of the tamarind tree native to Asia and northern Africa.
- Tartare
- 1. noun Ground or finely chopped, seasoned raw meat (traditionally beef). May or may not come mounded, and with a raw egg.
- Terrine
- 1. noun An earthenware container, or the dish cooked therein.
- Torchon
- 1. noun Method of cooking foie gras by which it is placed in a towel (torchon in French) and poached.
- Wonton
- 1. noun A small dumplings made by filling thin sheets of dough with a mixture finely chopped meat, seafood or vegetables.
- Yuzu
- 1. noun A tangy citrus fruit with flavorful rind.
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