Seattle Culinary Coma

I am in love with Seattle's Wild Ginger Asian Restaurant & Satay Bar.
There is a reason they have had the honor of holding the title of # 1 Most Popular Restaurant in the Pacific Northwest Region for 11 consecutive years. An elegant balance of Chinese and Southeast Asian food cultures, Wild Ginger is a world unto itself. We started with a Mango Daiquiri, yum, and an appetizer of Nam's Prawns...you can spot them in the upper right-hand corner of the photo below. The giant prawns are marinated and grilled, then served with a spicy Cambodian dipping sauce.

For the main course, I just had to order duck, because who ever cooks a duck at home? Besides, it is the house specialty so you know it has to be wonderful. The Wild Ginger Fragrant Duck lived up to its name. Succulent, fragrant, spiced with cinnamon and star anise and served with the most amazing steamed buns. They were like little pillows, into which you stuffed the duck drizzled with Sichuan peppercorn salt and sweet plum sauce. Everything is served with their Jasmine rice which was fine by me! Okay, now I'll be having visions of plum sauce dancing in my head all day...

Dessert was a tough decision; ginger ice cream, mango sorbet, coconut gelato? In the end, the dense flour-less Belgian Chocolate Torte won hands-down. Wish the photo was a bit better so you could see how lovely the crushed toffee looks crumbled all over the Chantilly cream!!! The four of us shared, now that was tough.

I promise I did not order a second dessert, but the waitperson, a lovely woman with a great sense of humor, decided we just had to try the Coconut Gelato. Welllllll, I travel to Italy regularly and I have had gelato from some of the best gelaterias in the world, but this creamy bowl of perfection could knock them all to the floor and have them crying "uncle". Simply divine... Thanks, super, wonderful waitperson, who knows her job, which is to make sure her guests have a fun, happy, memorable evening filled with great food, great conversation and gelato!