“Chinese Restaurant of the Year 2006″ - The tagline is posted at the entrance to Ginseng in Manuka. With such a bold proclaimation like that, how could we resist?
First dish I tried was the Peking Duck - I’ve grown up with Peking Duck, and it’s one of those dishes that I use as a benchmark when comparing chinese restaurants. The duck itself was quite good - if a little tough (probably a little too “meaty” for my taste), the sauce and pancakes were done well, with the pancakes having a good texture.
The Staff served the Peking duck - you get 6 pancakes/serving
Closer look at the Peking Duck
After the duck it was on to the main dishes. We tried several dishes, scallops in XO sauce was done well, though they could have been a little more generous with the number of scallops (it’s chinese restaurant with no tablecloth, not Flower Drum).
Scallops in XO Sauce
The battered king prawns with five spices was nice. The prawns were fresh (very important) and the batter was not too oily. For a non-spicy eater like myself, the amount of flavour was just right - though the spciy food fans I was eating with found it a little bland.
King Prawns in Spicy Salt
There were other dishes on the night, all solid but forgetable (nothing to blog about). Dessert was interesting, I had “tong yuen” with sweet pear soup. It’s always rare to find “tong yuen” served anywhere in Australia, and they did a decent job of it.
Tong Yuen with Sweet Pear Soup
Overall, I Ginseng is definitely one of the better chinese restaurants in Canberra, but is it the best? I’ll have to defer my judgement for now until I get the chance to try more places but it’s definitely up there.
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