Wild Ginger

My husband and I are both big fans of Asian food; I took him out for Thai on his birthday and we were sorely disappointed so we were cautiously optimistic as we went on a date night to Wild Ginger.
I literally could have eaten every single one of the appetizers on the menu and that’s not even counting the sushi which I also could have ordered just about everything. The worst part of the evening was trying to decide which appetizers to get!
We settled on the Wild Ginger Bites and Lettuce wraps. The Bites were a nice selection of several of the appetizers and all were super yummy. My husband thought the satay sauce was a little sweet but it was great for me since I’m not a huge fan of spice.
The lettuce wraps were amazing. Super fresh and well seasoned, as with everything we ate you could tell it was prepared to order and hadn’t been sitting around. I would have liked dipping sauce for them but I just used one of the sauces that came with the bites plate.
For our main course I had Shrimp Pad Thai and my husband had Beef Pad Char. Again both were super fresh and really well cooked. At our previous bad experience at a different restaurant my shrimp were rubbery and clearly had been heated up separate, but here they were plump and juicy and you could tell they were cooked with the sauce and noodles. I really loved all the bean sprouts the Pad Thai was served with as that is how my husband’s father’s wife, who is Thai, serves it!
He also really liked his Pad Char although he got it as an 8 on the spice scale and could have gone stronger. He loved it though and only wished there’d been more sauce he liked it so much.
We will definitely be back again and I’m looking forward to trying some of their creative sushi (mango!) offerings the next time!

Came in with coworkers for a quick lunch. It seemed pretty busy, but the servers were able to handle it decently. The prices are decent for the Thai portion of the menu, and the choices are pretty extensive. I opted for the green curry with a spice level of 7. You can choose brown rice instead of white for no up-​charge! I wouldn’t say it’s the best Thai I’ve had, but it was fairly decent. The 7 has just the slightest hint of spice. There was plenty of parking in the back.

Thai food and sushi are great, fast service and nice atmosphere. With recently upgraded sushi menu. It become one of the best sushi restaurant in the Cincinnati.

So the good first… They do have a parking lot, we were seated quickly, decent ambience, our server was friendly.
The okay… The summer rolls were edible
The bad… I don’t even know where to start. My friend and I got a swimming angel and a phở bowl. Sweating Angel was supposed to be spicy dish and it ended up becoming almost like a Candida peanut sauce with zero spice level on top of the salad and the phở had zero flavor and tasted like something out of a Campbell’s soup can. To be 100% honest we ate about five bites of each immediately left and went somewhere else to get actual dinner. Total waste of money and you couldn’t pay me enough to go back.

I had been here once a few years ago, and I wasn’t impressed. When my friend suggested meeting here for sushi, I said I would give it another try. We ordered edamame for an app, nothing out of the ordinary. Good size serving for 2 – 3 people to share.
I ordered tuna sashimi (an order has 2 slices) and the Giant Roll (tuna, salmon, white fish, avocado, asparagus, cucumber, masago). The sashimi was sliced thick but had that weird mercury color on it. However, I was happy with my roll selection. It was sliced thinly so gave me a lot of pieces and wasn’t overloaded with rice. It could have been rolled a little tighter as my first piece fell apart but that could have been my fault due to being rusty with the chop sticks!
We had dinner at 6:45 on a Wednesday night and it was empty, then again the weather could have kept people home. Since we were one of two tables, the service was good.
All together, I would say 3.7 out of 5, so I rounded up.

Paul and I had lunch here today after trying, rather unsuccessfully, to get a table at Red Feather Kitchen. When we arrived a few minutes before Noon, the place was empty, and I was worried.
What was good? They have a parking lot, friendly and timely service, clean bathrooms, nice earthy tones, comfortable seating, and calming music.
What was bad? Nothing.
What was okay? The food. The wonton soup has potential if more attention were to be paid to seasoning the broth properly and not overcoijung the wontons. The miso soup was watered down, which obviously detracts from the flavor. The rice on my avocado roll was applied in far too thin of a layer and the avocado was chunky rather than creamy. My spicy beef salad was also okay – at first I found the fish sauce in the vinaigrette to be somewhat overpowering, but the acid and sweetness balanced it out over time. The slightly tough beef was a bit of a turn off. The best food item was Paul’s Pad Thai with pork. I do not really like Pad Thai, but I tried it and thought it was pretty good. He ate every last morsel, so that says something.
With some improvements in the food department, Wild Ginger will definitely have more to offer.

What a difference two years makes! We had much worse meals from WG last night than we have in the past. The Shrimp Pad Thai should have been called «Beige Noodles with Farm-​Raised Shrimp.» The Spicy Green Beans with Beef was comparable to what I would have made at home if fresh lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and a wok were not available. The quality really seems to have gone down here.

I had never heard of this place until my friend suggested to go there for dinner one day. I was pretty amazed. the environment was very nice and mellow. We sat at the bar and ordered our food from the there. The bartender was very sweet and nice and explained the menu to me after I told her I had never been there before. After her great suggestions, I ordered the spring rolls and the fried rice with chicken with some added spice to it. the portions were pretty big but managed to eat all of it. My first experience was great and will definitely go back to do the hibachi next time.

Hibachi done correctly! Not oily or grease filled. We have been here 20+ times and have never had a bad meal. Herman is the hibachi chef and he is super friendly and makes everything perfectly. This will be the cleanest hibachi experience you will ever have.

Worst. Ever.
My husband and I went in for hibachi on a Sunday afternoon. We wanted to start with sushi — they were out of rice. Out of rice? Okay, we’re okay with that… we had sashimi instead. They assured us there was enough rice for hibachi so we proceeded to order steak and shrimp and steak and scallops. We wanted the steak medium rare.
They delivered salads, what we thought were salads, but they had watered down ginger dressing, so watery that we thought we might have ordered soup… Tasteless and foul, just really gross.
Okay so now 25 minutes in and they come out and tell us that the gas is broken so the grill will take another 5 minutes to warm up. They offered free appetizers and sushi while we waited. Good move (ish). So we got another sashimi roll and a sushi roll (they would scrape together enough rice for a sushi roll).
Out it came. The sushi roll was literally so loosely rolled it fell apart upon lifting and it was covered with «chef’s sauce» I.e. Pink water mixed with mayo.
Reliving this is making me feel ill, so I’ll spare you and wrap it up…
When the gas was on and the grill was fixed, they started cooking. I asked for steamed rice, they gave us both fried. The steak was cooked medium well and tasted old. Nothing was seasoned. The yum yum sauce was more of a sweet lemon miracle whip type of something… Something… The rice was neither seasoned or cooked fully. None of it was edible. We didn’t eat any of it. One bite of each item was enough.
Here’s the kicker. The check was 99 dollars. We talked to the server, all of our «free apps and sushi» were included on the bill. She took that stuff off, but it was still 70 bucks and all still sitting on the table. We asked to talk to a manager. There was no manager there. My husband asked if they could call one. The server said the manager didn’t answer.
So we paid for it. And grumbled and vowed to tell it all on Unilocal.Unfortunately writing the review hasn’t made us feel any better about it.
Just don’t go, ever. Save yourselves.

I split the spicy shrimp sushi and the pad thai with a friend. It was awesome! Great food, excellent service, and the price was good as well. The serving sizes are generous as well. I love this place. We will be back!

This is a review on «Sushi» only: there are around 13 places to eat Sushi in the Hyde Park /​Mt Lookout area. You would think one place would be better than another, but sadly they all are about the same: «below average at best». Competition generally should drive one of these restaurants to excel… Just a little. So, struck with a case of amnesia, we popped in WG today for lunch… Warm, borderline hot sushi rolls. Tried one. Stopped. We paid our bill, and left. In Cincy, a developing «foodie» city… You’d expect better. The best sushi is in Mason (the burbs), try KYOTO.

I love Wild Ginger! I’ve been going since they opened and I’ve never had a bad experience there– minus one horrendous date, but that wasn’t their fault :)
I stopped in last night with my best friend, it had been a while since I had been.
For an appetizer, I ordered the chicken potstickers. They’re always good. Soft, but with little crispy spots on the outside. The soy ginger type sauce they serve with them is so delicious that I occasionally save it for my rice later in the meal! We also ordered the crab Rangoon. Super crispy and fresh with a sweet filling. There could be a little more crab, but I feel like most people who order this aren’t super fans of crab anyway.
For dinner, I ordered the teriyaki salmon. I had had it before, but I had forgotten just how great it was. It’s served in a thick, teriyaki glaze. If you’re a thinner teriyaki lover, this isn’t for you. But I love it!
It was served next to some stir fry veggies which were pretty good (except mushrooms– but that’s my personal taste).
My friend ordered their phở, which I’ve previously had and have always been a fan of.
You have the option of meat (chicken, beef, and I think shrimp?) or tofu or just veggies. She ordered the tofu.
The phở is served with a side dish of limes, a heaping pile of bean sprouts, and a small bowl of Sriracha-​looking hot sauce to add to your hearts desire.
Everything was tasty!
They give a 10% discount if you pay with cash, which is nice if you have it.
The service was great, we had a server who was new and asked us to please excuse his English. We are both patient people and his English actually wasn’t that bad and our order came or correctly– which sometimes doesn’t even happen with native English speakers at other restaurants. Hah!
Anyway, yummy food, great service, I’m a fan. :)

Nice selection on the menu from stir fry to sushi. They also have a hibachi table. Nice décor and friendly staff. Small parking lot behind.

This place is just… ok. The pad thai was very bland and on the sweeter side. For the price ($ 13) for tofu pad thai, not a good deal… The sashimi deluxe regular was ok. The portion was decent but it wasn’t anything I would rave about. The ambience was good.

The food was pretty good and fresh, but not amazing. For the price it seemed like it could have been more or better food. Service was fine, I think I saw a famous author there which was cool. On a side note, two people can easily share the stir fry dishes. –shrug– eh

Wildly fun and so good!!! Took 13 people for my 23 year old son’s birthday!
The hibachi cook was fantastic! He was so personable and made the birthday party even better!
The food was excellent!
And I was stunned at the reasonable prices when my bill arrived.
It was an overall, outstanding dinner, experience and evening!

I don’t pick Wild Ginger when I’m in the Hyde Park area. My kiddo loves Fusian; my husband loves Lemongrass; and my favorite is Green Papaya. However, I sometimes go to WG if a friend suggests it. This last time I went was purely out of convenience: I had errands to do at Rookwood, but was CRAVING phó something fierce.
I’d been hoping to try Saigon Café, but they were closed, and I distantly recalled WG, being a «fusian Asian» restaurant, offering phó (along with their hibachi, sushi, Thai, etc.). I was seated quickly and the service was friendly, as it has been the other few times I’ve been there. But the food, UGH! Bad. Just bad.
I ordered veggie spring rolls, and while they were tasty, the shredded vegetable filling was still cold in the centers. Not great. But the phó was sacrilegious — just disgusting, the worse phó I have ever had. It was a big bowl of spicy, grease-​filmed, ORANGE broth, globbed with gummy noodles and bean sprouts already added in (this is a negative — I don’t like bean sprouts anyway and I never add them to my phó).
BUT THE WORSE was how, on top of the soup, was mounded strips of COOKED beef — how nasty! I had to ask for hoisin sauce and sriracha, since neither were offered or displayed on the table. Neither helped the «phó» anyway, which reminded me increasingly of those nasty Maruchan-​brand spicy beef-​flavored cup of Ramen noodles (the ones you add hot water to and let sit for several minutes) that I ate incessantly in college (I’m clearly not a food snob).
The cooked beef strips were unappetizing, the broth was nasty, and unlike the affordable Ramen noodle packets consumed during my years as a starving grad student, the yucky phó and cold spring rolls were WAY overpriced — $ 19 (no beverage), and with tip, amounted to $ 22. Ridiculous, even if the food had been good (c’mon now, phó is just cheap noodles and broth, and the rolls weren’t stuffed with shrimp or meat).
The food and value were 1-​star, but the servers were friendly so I’ll bump it up to 2-​stars, but I will definitely not be going back. I’ll get some $ 8 sushi at Fusian close by next time, or grit my teeth and face the parking situation in Clifton to my beloved Cilantro with its $ 7 phó and $ 1.75 spring roll!

Boyfriend and I went for lunch. We were seated right away and service was great. We ordered cream cheese wontons and shrimp tempura for appetizers which were both delicious. (5 stars)
Our main meals, however, weren’t as great. I ordered Wild Ginger Fried Rice with Chicken (no broccoli, because ew and level 4) and everything except for the chicken was delicious. The chicken tasted so bland and very freezer burnt. I was so disappointed because I was looking for the same exact Thai dish I ate up at Thai 9 in Dayton without having to experience the longer drive. My boyfriend ordered the seafood mix Teriyaki stir fry. He didn’t like his dish either. (1 star)
Needless to say, we probably will not be going back for a long time.

Wild Ginger wasnt even on my radar… the mister and I originally planned to eat somewhere in rookwood spontaneously after a concert but since it was Saturday night, everywhere was packed. Wild Ginger was pretty packed too, but it looks like theyre very willing to accommodare large parties if reserved in advanced and despite the people, we still found parking in the back lot. As promised, we got seated within 20 minutes, and there always seemed to be room at both the drink bar and sushi bar.
BF had the sauvignon blanc and I had the moscato, which was super refreshing and delightfully sweet. Wine list seemed pretty diverse, although their cocktail list seemed pretty short. They have your typical Asian beers and sake too (lychee and fuji apple, hot sake included).
For food, we shared the spicy tuna roll, which was honestly a huge disappointment compared to aroma, cloud 9, mr. Sushi, or drunken bento. Although, sashimi platters are even an option here, so props to you guys I guess.
Theres an extensive list of stir fry and noodle options, which you can choose beef, chicken, vegetarian, sea bass, scallop, shrimp, etc., and choose a spice level between one and ten. Boyfriend had the drunken noodle with scallops, spice level 3. I tried it and there was barely a kick so put your number at a 4 – 5 if you love sriracha or spicy. They were very generous with their amount of protein. Same goes for mine, pad see ew with beef. Vegetables were delicious, but I wish they had cooked noodles a tad bit more al dente.
Service was on point all night and super fast. Our server especially were soooo patient with the table next to us, who gave the server a hard time after not realizing most thai dishes uses fish sauce… lol. Props to you dude.
Tldr; good drunken noodle and pad see ew, scallops are good. Sushi not so much. Get their wine! Service is great.

This was my first visit to Wild Ginger. It was carry-​out and the staff was very friendly and accommodating. They patiently answered my questions about the menu items. My personal trainer recommended I try Wild Ginger. I ordered Teriyaki Vegetables with Chicken. The dish was very good. The Vegetables were fresh & not mushy. The chicken was recognizable as Authentic Chicken! not like some storefront Asian carryouts that use some form of white chopped scraps of something shipped from somewhere and pass it off as chicken. Sorry, I digress… my meal was very good. I will be back.

Went here with another couple on a weekend night. Glad we had reservations! Definitely a must on the weekends. First time here, and though it was okay I don’t think I will be back. I did not like the waiter. He was not very friendly and really kind of snobby. When I asked him his opinion between two dishes, he had this attitude — like, can’t you decide? «They’re really two different dishes.» Other waiters at other restaurants at least reply in a pleasant tone of voice. Not him. The food was okay. Nothing special. Another tidbit — the restaurant emptied out. We hadn’t seen our friends in a while and probably stayed past our welcome. BUT — the restaurant was practically empty! They stopped filling our waters — hint, hint — they definitely wanted us to leave.

Wild Ginger offers a pleasant atmosphere with some intriguing art work. Servers are friendly, but I can’t help but notice a bit of a language barrier, and perhaps not the kind you would expect.
Try any stir-​fry with beef, it is delicious.
Chicken dishes are tasteless. I don’t know what they’re doing to their chicken but it’s wrong and it has no flavor. Chicken Pad Thai is a whiff, which means I can’t rate this place any higher than average.
Sushi is hit or miss. Some are good, some are boring. I just think you can do better with other sushi places in the surrounding area.

I’d eaten at Wild Ginger once before, and had a «meh’ dish, but this visit was much different. First off, we went on Easter… do you know how hard it is to find an open restaurant on Easter? I didn’t until we tried. Happily, Wild Ginger was open, so we decided to try it. The BF was so happy to see Phở on the menu (his favorite Asian dish). I was happy to see a huge selection of vegetarian dishes. I remembered the last time my dish was «meh» I had ordered a noodle dish… not sure why as I am not a huge noodle dish lover. This time, I made sure to avoid ordering the same thing by getting a rice dish.
I ordered the vegetable garden stir fry. It had a wide variety of fresh vegetables and plenty of good ones (including asparagus and zucchini… my two favorite vegetables.) It had a brown sauce, but wasn’t at all thick or heavy as some brown sauces can be. The BF said the Phở was some of the best he’d ever had with a very flavorful broth and filled with tons of chicken. In fact, there was so much stuff in his bowl, he didn’t have any room to add the extras that come on the side.
Service was good and we managed to snag a place right in front; however, it was early and Easter… so there probably wasn’t too much competition. I do know that they can get very busy and that, while they have a parking lot, it doesn’t hold enough spaces for all the patrons. I did see a sign that you could park in the Busken lot, so that helps, since parking in this area tends to be at a premium.