Restaurant review: Red Ginger

(Credit: Chris Kridler, special to Metromix)

Red Ginger
Where: 6300 N. Wickham Road, No. 127, Melbourne
Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday to Thursday; 11 a.m. to10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon to 10 p.m. Sunday
Call: 321-242-1167
Other: Red Ginger has an attractive, full-service bar with large-screen TVs that seats 14 people. Wi-fi also is available.

Red Ginger offers casual elegance and nicely presented Chinese food with sushi, too. The Suntree restaurant, formerly Lucky Garden 2, immediately surrounds visitors with relaxing Asian music and clean, bright decor. It doesn’t feel like one of those stripped-down, strip-mall spots I’ve come to associate with Chinese restaurants. Nice lighting, wooden surfaces and a pretty sushi bar add to the atmosphere. Cloth napkins add a touch of class, even though there still are those paper Chinese horoscope placemats. 

The de rigueur fried wonton strips came with sweet sauce and a hot mustard that brought happy tears to my eyes. My companion and I also got appetizers: a sushi sampler of delicious fresh fish, and gyoza, the fried Japanese dumplings. 

The menu is large and includes a number of Chinese specialties, along with plenty of sushi choices. There’s nice variety on the lunch offerings, with welcome, diverse options for sides. The lunch specials, served from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., cost $8 to $9. 

My companion opted for the Singapore Rice Noodle entree for $7.95, a hearty, warming dish of fine noodles studded with shrimp, chicken, pork and other ingredients and flavored with curry; her sides were an egg drop soup and a hot and crispy spring roll. 

I ordered the crispy prawn with honey glazed walnuts for $8.95. Though marked as spicy on the menu, the sweet sauce had just a mild undertone of heat, and the nuts provided a pleasant crunchy texture and slight bitterness that worked well with the prawn. Springy, steamed broccoli came with the dish, and my sides were the decadent, creamy crabmeat rangoons and steamed rice. 

There’s a lot more to explore on Red Ginger’s menu, and I look forward to returning.

Contact Kridler at 321-242-3633 or ckridler@floridatoday.com.

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