Raised in Dayton, Ohio, he spent hours cooking alongside his mother and father at Mandarin Kitchen, their family-owned restaurant. His experience taught him about restaurant operations and most importantly, the art of making customers happy through food.

In high school, Ming headed east to attend school at Phillips Academy Andover. From there, Ming continued to Yale University earning his degree in Mechanical Engineering. During this time, Ming spent his summers attending Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and apprenticing at area restaurants in Paris. After graduating from Yale, Ming moved to Paris and trained under renowned Pastry Chef Pierre Herme and then on to Osaka with Sushi Master Kobayashi.

In 1998, Ming opened Blue Ginger in Wellesley, MA, and immediately impressed diners from Boston and Beyond with the restaurant’s innovative East-West cuisine. In 2002, the James Beard Foundation crowned Ming
“2002 Best Chef Northeast” and since 2002, the Zagat Restaurant Guide rated Blue Ginger within the “Top 5 of Most Popular Restaurants”. In 2007, Blue Ginger received the Ivy Award from Restaurants & Institutions for its achievement of the highest standards in food, hospitality and service.

Ming hosts and executive produces the PBS cooking show, Simply Ming.
As the longest-running PBS cooking show, Simply Ming received two Emmy nominations for “Outstanding Culinary Program” and “Outstanding Lifestyle/Culinary Host”, and received two Bronze Telly Awards in the categories of “Lighting” and “Art Direction”. Ming began cooking for television audiences on the Food Network, where he was the 1998 Emmy Award-Winning host of East Meets West with Ming Tsai. Ming’s Quest, a popular cooking adventure series, also aired on Food Network.