I took two friends to lunch on Friday at Ginger Rootz, a Chinese restaurant on Ballard Road in the north part of Appleton (2020 N. Ballard RD, 920-738-9688). Nice interior, but the food was inadequate. I ordered a Kung Pao dish that looked nice but violated the delicious tradition of Kung Pao style cooking. The peanuts, for example, were just regular roasted peanuts that were sprinkled on the dish at the end, rather than participants in the flavor medley created during cooking of the dish. The vegetables were also disappointing. They were nothing but chopped water chestnuts with a few large pieces of bell peppers thrown in - and the bell peppers tasted horrible.

I don't know where they got such things, but there was a strange chemical flavor on the bell peppers that I didn't pay attention to at first but almost gagged me when I actually tasted it. The waiter didn't check in on how the food was after I noticed this (we were busy talking), but I did tell the front desk about the unpleasant pepper experience. In fact, I was worried that I had ingested something harmful and asked for a sample of their peppers in case I got food poisoning or something. They brought me a few pieces and there was an odd smell to them. But they assured me they were fresh and high quality. Oh well. (I took them home and after a day, the smell was even worse, but that may have been due to new microbial degradation unrelated to their state in the restaurant. It was a similar smell - but my best guess is that it was a residue from cleaning agents or pesticides. Both the red and the green pepper pieces tasted bad - and I'm a big fan of bell peppers, very familiar with their normal taste.)

Please note that my experience with what I think was some kind of chemical agent in the bell peppers may be extremely unusual. Maybe it was just a new spice I've never encountered, or I may have just had unlucky peppers that naturally tasted bad. But I just heard reports from two other people indicating they also had been unimpressed with the quality of food there. And one of my guests told me that his General Tso's chicken dish also was inadequate, lacking the crispy exterior on the chicken that is traditional for the dish.

Better recipes and perhaps better ingredients might be needed for Ginger Rootz - though I know some people think it's great. But for me, at least for now, I have to give it my dread thumbs down.