Glad to Meet You

Gingko Tree offers Chinese fare at its best

Comments (0) By Mark Stuertz Thursday, Nov 27 2003

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Texas, of course, is not a region of China--at least not yet. So how does one explain the cowboy wonton soup, a dishwater-bland little slurp with turkey wontons, chicken slices and spinach? Zeng says the soup is so named because the wontons bear a striking resemblance to 10-gallon Stetsons.

Hot and sour soup was far more rewarding. Thin and fluid instead of thick and unctuous, the soup had an enlivening edge hewn with a tomato base zinged with rice vinegar and a rich, earthy brown Chinese brewed vinegar.

Peter Calvin

Asian medicine influences many dishes at Gingko Tree.

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Gingko Tree China Bistro

2704 Cross Timbers
Lewisville, TX 75028

Category: Restaurant > Chinese

Region: Lewisville

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Spicy calamari $6.95
Firecracker dumplings $6.95
Cowboy wonton soup $4.95
Hot and sour soup $4.95
Pearl River splash $12.95
Dragon sesame chicken $10.95
Lychee nut shrimp $11.95
Ants climb tree $7.95
Fire on ice $5.95

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But no Chinese restaurant could be called such without fried foods, and Gingko Tree has them in a restrained number of entrants. Spicy calamari, corkscrew-cut body tubes, are lightly coated in flour and cornstarch and flecked with kosher salt and black pepper. The meat is tender, but has backbone--not a bit like the crusty linguini impersonators swamping fried calamari plates across Texas, maybe even the world.

Dragon sesame chicken is addicting. Lightly battered, yet brittle, the quick-fried and moist chicken chunks are greaseless and delicately sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Gingko Tree brushes brilliance when it goes minimalist. Pearl River splash is a piece of fresh fish (flounder for us) with a lightly aromatic simple treatment of ginger and scallions. The fish is moist, flaky and dense, but with a residual sweetness that no doubt would have been mauled in clumsier hands.

Gingko gets novel, too. Ants climb tree, rice noodles infested with stir-fried ground pork, bell peppers, scallions and tiny broccoli florets, really does saddle up to its name: Those pork grains looked like little worker marchers crawling on vines of noodle. Yet the sauce was a bit wimpy. Zeng says this traditional Szechwan dish comes with considerable punch, but at Gingko it is toned down for Texas audiences. Go figure.

Yet whatever bugs may be gumming up the bistro gears here, they are minor. In fact, to plagiarize King, we were "very excited to be here."

2704 Cross Timbers, No. 118, Flower Mound, 972-724-8100. Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday & Saturday. $$