Ginger & Scallion — Restaurant in Seattle

I’m a Singaporean immigrant and overly passionate about chicken rice. Here’s the synopsis for you quick scrollers: Rice, perfect 5/5 Table Sauces (and this is important), lacking 2/5 Chicken, breast a bit dry 4/5 Service, great wait staff 5/5 Value, hard to justify price 2/5

Anyway, here’s the full review. The chicken rice experience is characterised by the rice and the table sauces. So, let’s start there.

Rice The rice was fragrant, and perfectly cooked. It had soaked up all that beautiful flavor from the chicken fat and the alliums in the cooking process. You love to see it.

Table Sauces The sauces, however, weren’t pulling their weight. You might think “They’re just table sauces, they’re not that important.” The sauces give chicken rice its character. And in my opinion, a spoonful of rice with a bit of chili and ginger sauce is the best bite of your life. The chili sauce was lacking in flavor. The ginger sauce was thick and gooey, likely thickened by starch. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not super common and I personally didn’t like the texture of it. The Thai chili sauce was more flavorful but still underwhelming. The dark soy sauce was dark soy sauce.

Chicken (Singapore Style, breast meat & Classic, dark meat) The Singapore style chicken I wouldn’t really call Singapore style. Lemongrass is a nice touch, bell peppers not so much. But people like a bit of variety, we let it slide. The classic was pretty classic. Cilantro, green onions, and cucumbers. Perfect. The chicken breast was slightly dry. If you think chicken breast is always going to be dry. No, ok. Chicken breast can be moist. The dark meat was moist, as we would expect from dark meat. The cucumbers were too thick. You might say “Don’t eat the decorations”. Well, I paid $24 for this and It’s all part of the experience, so I’m going to eat the decorations. Also, a thinly sliced cucumber coated in sauce is an experience, don’t sleep on it.

Cucumber Salad Side We got the cucumber salad. It was $8 for 10 thick cucumber slices in a vinegary sauce with two wolfberries on top. Not really worth the price. Cucumber salads never are, but my friend wanted it.

Broth The broth was a normal chicken broth. Usually, chicken rice broth is pretty plain. If a chicken rice broth is super flavorful its cause they’ve dumped a box of MSG in there. So this is fine.

Tiny Things A calamansi juice drink would hit. Okay this one is just me being nitpicky. But I think “Chicken Rice” is a more suitable name for the dish than “Chicken and Rice”.

Service & Atmosphere The wait staff were chill. Service was quick and efficient. The ambience was calming. The restaurant smelled great from the outside.

Conclusion Overall, it’s hard to justify the high price. I understand rent is expensive. But the price is steep even for Seattle. I was quite critical, but I really want them to succeed. My advice would be to not let my review deter you. Try it for yourself...

Got to experience the soft opening of @ginger.scallion in 📍Ballard, WA. It is a new Hainanese chicken rice restaurant run by the owners of @secret.congee.

Hainanese chicken rice 🍚 is a dish of poached chicken and seasoned rice, served with chilli sauce and usually with cucumber garnishes. We tried their cucumbers with a light sauce and goji berries. They were super crunchy and had sesame oil and rice vinegar but it was not over powering. Very refreshing and the goji berries were a nice addition. Next we all 3 of their chicken 🐔 dishes. The Original Style($21) which came with broth and rice, the Drunken Style ($24) which is rice wine cooked chicken that also comes with broth and rice and then we got the Curry Style ($16) which was shredded chicken, house curry sauce, chili sauce, fried shallots and cilantro over rice. All 3 were so delicious but the Drunken Style was my favorite. The curry was warm and delicious and hit the spot for the freezing cold weather and wasn’t too spicy 🌶️ . We asked for more chili to spice it up a bit. The rice they use is delicious and flavorful. Lots of good ginger and flavor. The broth had amazing flavor as well and I loved the white pepper which was not overpowering at all. It was very comforting and warming.

They had 4 amazing sauces. I am a sauce lover and could put it on everything. They had a thick soy sauce, a garlic and scallion, a lemongrass and chili, and then the Chicken Rice sauce which by far was our favorite! I could literally put it on everything! The Lemongrass Chili does have some heat to it 🌶️🔥 but I couldn’t stop eating it with the Original Style chicken. Try all 4 sauces if you like sauces like I do.

Chef J.P and his brother Boss have done an amazing job and I highly recommend checking out Ginger and Scallion. Angela and Leah are amazing servers who are very attentive and give the best service with a smile. Can’t wait to go back again!! Thanks for an amazing meal @ginger.scallion! 🫚🍚🐓

📍500 NW 65th ST Seattle WA...

I recently had the chance to try Ginger & Scallions new concept swap from chicken and rice to khao soi. Food, service and atmosphere is on-point for the most part, but, damn!, that dollar to food cost is a tough value proposition! I hate to ding G&S too much for the environment they are operating with the cost of operating in Seattle being high, but this portion to the cost was lopsided enough for me to make it the feature of this review.

I ordered take out for lunch the Beef Tenderloin Khao Soi that cost me 29.59 which includes a $2 tip (no drinks, sides etc). With the meal I got what looked to be 4-5oz of beef aka 5 thinner strips of steak, some noodles, and garnish. The dish was really good, but the portion was just too small. I spent $30 for a great flavor experience but had to spend more to get something else to eat. G&S should definitely at the least increase the amount of noodles and veg that comes with the dish, as there is plenty of curry/soup to flavor more noodles and veg.

Overall a good spot, but the price is noticeable. Order two portions of the Beef Tenderloin Khao Soi for a grown male adult.

I didn't get a chance to take a photo, I was too hungry and ate it real quick, but when I opened the take out container it visually appeared to look like leftovers based on how much food...