Chef Ming Tsai

Chef Ming Tsai, chef/owner of Blue Ginger, Wellesley, MA, and TV Food Network star, said he was born "with cooking in his blood." As a child, Chef Ming was surrounded by food as his parents and grandparents were gourmets. He started cooking in his family's Chinese restaurant as a teenager in Dayton, OH, and although he took a brief detour in his culinary career to earn a Mechanical Engineering degree from Yale University, it could not distract him from his true passion. Ming went on to Paris to study at Cordon Bleu and worked at Fauchon and Natasha, where he encountered East-West cuisine for the first time.

Chef Ming also earned a Master's Degree in Hotel Administration and Hospitality Marketing from Cornell University and went on to open the Hotel-Intercontinental Chicago, where he become the food and beverage director. But again, his love of cooking lured him back to the kitchen, and Chef Ming arrived at Silks, an East-West restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in San Francisco, CA. From there Chef Ming went on to hold executive chef positions at some other prestigious restaurants, including the Ginger Club in Palo Alto and Santacafe in Santa Fe. It was at Santacafe where Chef Ming was honored as the best chef in Santa Fe with a 27 out of 30 rating in the Zagat Guide.

Today, Chef Ming owns Blue Ginger with his wife, Polly. "Put simply, Blue Ginger is my baby," says Chef Ming, adding that Blue Ginger is the "physical culmination of years of experimentation," combined with the skills he learned from his mentors as well as "plain old, hard work." Blue Ginger has received "3 Stars" from The Boston Globe and has been named "Best New Restaurant" by Boston Magazine. Ming has appeared in USA Today, the New York Times, Saveur Magazine, Food Arts and Food and Wine.

As the Chef/Owner of Blue Ginger, Chef Ming was named "Chef of the Year" by Esquire Magazine in 1998. It was this same year that Chef Ming's hit television series, "East Meets West with Ming Tsai," debuted on the TV Food Network. In May 1999, he was awarded a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Service Show Host. He has also hosted "In Food Today" and "Cooking Live" on the TV Food Network. Ming's most recent accomplishment is the completion of his first cookbook, BLUE GINGER: East Meets West Cooking with Ming Tsai, which is available on his web site, www.ming.com.