Hitting the Sweet spot in Union Square
An early taste of what's new on the restaurant scene
Sweet Ginger, the new Thai place in Union Square, is so new you can still smell the orange paint drying on the walls. It's so needed that a dozen or so Yelp reviews have culminated in a five-star rating. One exclamatory diner had to go out of his way to find a reason to be critical. "The only strike in the minus column would be that I had to adjust myself and my chair so that I wasn't being constantly rained on by the little water fountain above me. Maybe I should have mentioned it to someone but it was hardly a bother." Could the food at this place be so good that you could eat it in a downpour and not care? Is there any food that delicious?
That mania for Sweet Ginger hasn't yet translated into a packed house. A recent weekend trip and a subsequent Tuesday-night visit found a smattering of people at tables and a non-stop stream of take-out diners. But it's obvious what the fuss is about. Until now, there was no place else in the neighborhood to get tamarind duck, and heaven help the restaurant that tries to top the duck here. It's a nearly holy blend of succulence and tang. Chicken cooked with basil and a lot of vegetables magically qualifies as a stew. And the curries are as good as curry can be without being extraordinary. The abundance of pineapple in the yellow curry does bring a tear to your eye. You barely need to order it cooked with meat.
But not everybody is so taken with Sweet Ginger. On one evening, the owner of the red curry dish (eggplant, string beans, bamboo shoots, peas, peppers, and basil) with beef described it as "imitation Thai." This person is not Thai himself. As fan of Thai cooking, he just had a hunch. Why? The curry wasn't rich enough for him: "It's more like a dressing," he said. On a separate trip without this person, the red curry's richness was more than passable. If it's not authentically Thai, it's at least authentically good.
But there are other disappointments. The chicken satay has been grilled to fare thee well. And the sweet and sour duck (served atop spinach) has more crisp than duck, and the duck that is there is dry. This is a restaurant, though, that can turn a minus into a plus -and not by fixing leaky water fountains, per se. Crispiness is a secret weapon at Sweet Ginger. Lots of places excel at frying things. Here it's transformative. What that crispy duck lacks in poultry it makes up for with a vivid fry that tastes even better with the accompanying house sauce. Even better is the bowl of vegetable tempura. String beans, onions, zucchini, and carrots all battered lightly enough to see what's the beneath the coating and not so much that it doubles as an oily sponge. Dip any piece in that bedeviling house sauce and McDonalds and the Japanese should be worried.
It's possible that Sweet Ginger's enthusiasts are so starved for a decent Thai experience that it need to be merely solid to win fans. It's more than solid, if not astonishingly super. But that's the great advantage of a restaurant like Sweet Ginger in a neighborhood like Union Square. The food doesn't have to be out of this world. It just has to be in the neighborhood.
Sweet Ginger, 22 Bow St., Somerville, 02143. 617-625-5015. www.sweetgingerunionsq.com. Entrees $9.50-$13.50; no alcohol is served. 