Gingerboy, Melbourne

Saturday night I finally made it to Gingerboy with my very nice $150.00 voucher kindly arranged by Ed at Tomato that I managed to win in this years Menu for hope. With less then 2 weeks until D Day this was probably my last opportunity for a nice meal out for quite some time. Firstly the décor is fantastic, black bamboo lines the walls & ceilings with little fairly lights scattered through them so its all very magical, dark polished tables & very different clear plastic chairs for those sitting opposite the ‘couch wall’. The background music was funky & not too loud to be a nuisance & the place was packed & had a great vibe about it.

With all that money to spend Michael & I decided that we better try a bit of everything. The menu is divided between snacks & street food, and main courses, all designed to share. From the snack section we had the Steamed half shell scallops with green chilli sambal, these were delicious & definitely my favourite starter, the sambal serving quite a kick yet the flavour was still subtle enough to go perfectly with the scallop. Next we had the Son in Law eggs with Chilli Jam & Asian herbs that I have heard so many good things about. They certainly looked impressive yet as I am not allowed runny egg yolk at the moment & had to have them more on the well done side I don’t think I quite got the right flavour hit this way, oh well next time I will try them properly. Next up was Pork nam prik ong with shredded lettuce and herbs, this was minced pork in a sauce which was a bit on the sweet side for me though still good. Salt & Pepper Chicken spare ribs with a green chilli & soy dipping sauce came next, really very good, the rib is such a tender & meaty part of the chicken that most people don’t know about, Michael was especially pleased with this dish as for him it was a fancy & of course much superior version of the dreaded KFC. Lastly was the Prawn dumplings with chilli sauce, sticky soy & lime, these were delicate little parcels full of goodness, another one of the favourites for us.

Now my only complaint about this first part is that they all came out on top of each other & despite our waiters assurances that they were all quite small & would not be too much we were getting quite full at this stage & we still had a main to follow! Luckily they gave us a bit of a break before bringing out the Mussaman Duck leg curry with kipfler potatoes & shallots, we also had a serve of corn cakes which the waiter insisted on. Let me tell you this dish was fantastic & the corn cakes although sounding strange were great & you have to try some if you ever make it here.

And of course lastly we had to have some dessert, I did have high hopes for the sharing platter but of course there was no way this could even be considered so we shared the Steamed pandan dumplings with spiced pears & pure cream, loved these as well & they were the perfect end to a great meal.

All in all despite some mixed reviews of this place we had a great night, the staff were very friendly, attentive & helpful, food was very good, our glasses were always full & all in all service was very efficient, (even a bit too much to start with). Would be keen to go again & try out some more of the menu & some of the wicked sounding cocktails that sadly were off my list last night!

Gingerboy
27-29 Crossley Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Ph: +613 9662 4200
Fax: +613 9662 4250
Email: eat@gingerboy.com.au
www.gingerboy.com.au