GINGER Remuera

This small but classy establishment brings contemporary Thai cuisine to the Remuera strip.
Annie Ren
June 06, 2019

Overview

Remuera is not the first place that comes to mind when you're looking for authentic Thai food. Nevertheless, the area welcomes Ginger, a small and classy establishment which brings a different kind of eastern flavour to the Remuera Road strip, which already boasts Vietnamese and Malaysian eateries.

Most of the fit-out at Ginger is white and sparkling clean — you feel like you're stepping into a fine dining experience the moment you enter the restaurant. On this occasion there were only two wait staff roaming the floor, however, which impacted the service a little bit.

Ginger has a large menu that will take you over five minutes to digest. From a range of tantalising entrees to stir-fries, seafood dishes, curries and barbeque dishes, Ginger will make sure that everyone goes home with a happy belly.

Far more than your average roll call of Thai starters, the appetisers selection includes Thai-style tacos ($6.50 for one), Thai-style bruschetta ($6) and chargrilled scallops ($14). The platter for two ($19) offers a spring roll, prawn taco and scallop each. While it took around 40 minutes to arrive, the taste and presentation made up for the lengthy wait. We loved the chilli prawn with coconut, ginger and tamarind sauce on the thin purple kumara crisp that resembled a taco. The scallop, which arrived on a skewer, was grilled perfectly and thanks to the addition of pineapple had a subtle acidity that perfectly brought out the freshness of the seafood.

The massaman curry ($32) is one of Ginger's signature dishes, featuring a lamb shank smothered in red curry sauce. The sauce was executed to perfection, blending just the right amount of spice with a rich coconut taste. The potato and peanuts were the icing on the cake. The lamb shank itself was huge and super filling for two, though came out a bit tough and could have done with more curry paste to coat the entire shank.

We also tried the pad see-ew, stir-fried flat rice noodles with special dark soy sauce. We opted for the beef version of the dish. Perhaps making up for the lengthy wait, the kitchen was not shy on the portion size, with an almost 1:1 ratio of beef and noodles.

Overall, this was a satisfying meal at Ginger, a promising new resident to the Remuera dining scene. I'm sure with time, it'll be able to work on reducing the wait time of dishes to table (which is hardly a problem over a glass of wine) as well as the continued perfection of its dishes.

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