Basil Ginger — Restaurant in Wasilla

Wasilla's latest restaurant... great for the Valley, but limited innovation or creativity. Overpriced with a young inexperienced staff. A solid meal nonetheless.

We decided on a handful of a la carte appetizers and a sampling of Japanese dishes opting out the Chinese half of dinner.

Won Ton Soup was nice with a single homemade dumpling. Good vegetable stock.

Poke Salad was a little off with the addition of a banana chip and apple chip. No tobiko or cucumber was added as per mentioned on the menu. The Poke was over dressed in rice vinegar and lacked enough seseme oil, but was brought a side and the dish balanced out after the adjustment.

Unagi Roll was decent despite the lack of crispy skin and overuse and sweetness of unagi sauce.

Thai Shrimp Cakes were nice and crispy in their panko. The dipping sauce was just a mix of May Ploy, pretty standard. Not much Thai creativity.

Jiaoz Dumplings were deep fried potstickers with a very tangy sweet and sour sauce. Not bad, but nothing to write my mom about.

Overall a good decent meal. Because of it's location in Wasilla and solid cooking, it will be over-praised as a fantastic restaurant, but should be considered a bit overpriced.

The decor was beautiful without the overabundance of tacky Asian trinkets. Well lit with that new restaurant smell.

Our service was quick, but non-sequential seemingly cooked as inputted by our very young and fresh server evident from any suggestions of specials, drinks, or dessert.

Recommended, but be ready to...

I had come to Basil Ginger for a book club meeting, shortly after they opened, for the first time. The food was good and I enjoyed my time. My second experience, I had recently moved to Big Lake from Chugiak and wanted good shrimp fried rice and Mongolian beef. I was told to give Ginger Basil a try. Having just gad ankle surgery, we decided to get this as a take-home order. It was AMAZING. Third time trying Basil Ginger was a year-ish later, we decided to take our kids out for family supper. The food wasn't anywhere as good as it was the first and second visits. My husband and I have both spent time in different parts of Asia and have been quite picky on our food. Having had such wonderful experiences before, we were quite surprised by the disappointment we had this time. We both review everywhere we go and my husband's review, got a call asking us to revisit. Which we did and our experience was better. Unfortunately, a couple dishes we got, we didn't really care for and our teenager was less than impressed with the Thai tea. If we return, it will most likely only be for their shrimp fried rice and sushi rolls. The sushi appetizer, I do NOT recommend however, as two of their white fish were extremely fishy, spongy and just not good, leaving a thick filmy texture that we found absolutely unfavorable, with no paper napkins to discard from your mouth; and not with...

We have got to know a lot of the staff here now over the many years and times that we’ve been both as a family and also solely with my wife alone.. have also ventured with the kids on the odd occasion and also lunched and dined with both friends and clients alike.

This isn’t your average restaurant and I don’t normally leave reviews but as above and the fact we had such a wonderful experience last Friday night with our family together and the fact that all of their staff went out of their way to cater for all of us, we had both a vegetarian and also a vegan option offered to us even though we’re all meat eaters it was I lovely to be offered.

Make no mistake only book a table if you are used to high quality food served in a high quality a la carte manner at a price you would expect to pay with a standard of this calibre.

They have my favourite bottled Belgian Wheat beer ‘Blue Moon’ and also a wonderful ‘Julia’s Vineyard’ Pinot Noir that pretty much compliments most of their dishes.

Pay no attention to any negative reviews, not just for this restaurant but generally for anywhere.. We are all different individuals with differing tastes and therefore different standards but trust me if you get the chance to taste the high standards of Gino’s restaurant you will not forget your experience.

Thanks again Gino.

Look forward to seeing you...