The Pearl Eating House — Restaurant in Sydney

EDIT: decided to give this place another go in hopes they improved since opening, but was quickly reminded why they deserved the poor review from last time.

Waitstaff are still incredibly impatient and rude, and refuse to answer questions about whether dishes contain specific ingredients (for dietary allergies). The attention span of most service staff seems non-existent. If you take any longer than 10 seconds to complete your order or ask your question, they just turn around and walk away, even if you are mid-sentence.

We were charged for items that were not ordered. When we realised and asked for it to be corrected, the lady at the register refused to do so and said we must have ordered the dish. We had to escalate to the manager to resolve this issue.

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Good food but horrible service from a lot of the waitstaff who are also incredibly rude. Reading some of the other reviews now, it seems this is a common theme. For a relatively newly opened place, I was surprised - in a bad way - by our dining experience.

They have little patience to answer any questions you might have about the menu. They push you to order specific dishes and when you don't, lose even more patience (if that were even possible). Probably the worst thing was when it came to allergies. We have someone in our group who has a strong allergy to eggs. The waitress originally refused to check whether eggs were in a particular dish, which was beyond comprehension. Once she finally agreed to check, she didn't give us a clear answer as to whether it did.

"Are there eggs in this dish?" "There is a batter in the dish." "Are there eggs in the batter?" "I told you it's a batter" and then proceeded to walk off.

This seemed to set the tone for the rest of the night as well with waitresses hearing your question, then walking away without giving you a proper answer. We ended up outright telling one particular waitress that she was incredibly rude after receiving this treatment multiple times.

Quite unfortunate about the service because the food and atmosphere...

It was alright. We first walked in and were seated, but the table wasn't wiped down properly. It was like they started but didn't bother finishing the rest. There were used tissues on the floor and some other food crumbs that hadn't really been cleaned up, but it wasn't too bad. Service wasn't terrible, but some of them really looked like they didn't want to be there, just seemed to be in a bad mood. The food wasn't to my own personal liking (mainly because I myself am not the biggest fan of Chinese food) but my family didn't have many complaints so take that as you will. One food I do enjoy, is Peking duck. The cucumbers and spring onions were brought in plastic boxes as though they were kept in the box and removed when needed to be served. The pancake/wrap were stuck together and the waiter took awhile to peel them all apart, and some were ripped. It tasted fine, but I think it would've been better if the ingredients were served on a larger platter-sort of thing and the customers could just pick out what they wanted in their wrap and wrapped it themselves. A little more work for customers, but it would've reduced the hassle with the waiters and would've been more customisable for customers. When we paid for our food, there was a little trouble there. For context, we only ordered one course of each meal, and we were served one course, but the waiter for some reason had written that we ordered two courses for every meal we ordered. Luckily the man sorting out our final bill handled it quite responsibly and made us pay for what we were meant to pay. Now this last point, isn't necessarily the restaurant's fault, but it was something that occurred, was the atmosphere. There was a club next door to the restaurant, and there were singers performing a bunch of western pop songs which didn't suit the Chinese restaurant we were in. And the singing wasn't even that good and extremely loud. But it was an overall fine experience. Probably won't go again, but if you like Chinese food, then you would probably enjoy it more than I...

This morning we all ventured out early as it was Sunday and the air pollution wasn't that bad. We have heard about this newish restaurant and as we had visitors from interstate, we thought we will check it out. We had to join the clubs membership, $11 for a year. No big deal. It was only 10.10am and when we got near the entrance, we saw it was open from 11am. That was fine and we sat outside of the restaurant in the clubs foyer. This was an open area with the membership card equipment as well as the open looking bar, and offices. To the other side was other club entertainment services.

But about 5 minutes later, a lady had beckons us to come in. She was most welcoming inspite of me saying we are okay to wait. We were the first table, and could see staffs arranging table setup and a few yam cha chefs kneading doughs, steaming up the bamboo steamers and frying other delicacies. Service was courteous and fast. Upon ordering our Chinese tea, a trolley loaded with a wide varieties of steaming bamboo baskets came, and we are in business! The servings were average sized, but I think the yam/taro fried dumplings were a bit small, but then it had the great puffy and crispy outer skin, which was great. The normal dishes were great, fresh and tasty. I I didn't detect the normal presence of MSG and that's a big plus. Over the course of the next 30 minutes, other clients ventured in. There were live seafood tanks, with 2 varieties of lobsters, barramundis, black lip abalone to choose from. The restaurant was opened plan, very welcoming, with quite modern deco and "red flags" adoring the ceiling. The staffs were efficient, and pleasant and neatly attired. When it's paying time, I was given the option of having a membership discount or have it "credited" to my membership! It was pretty good value and very comparable to others. Given the location and the standard of food, we will no...