HL Peninsula Pearl — Restaurant in Burlingame

Two summers ago I visited this restaurant for the first time while staying at the hotel next door. Their parking lots are adjacent to each other, so it was an easy walk over. I go in and am pleased to see that almost all their customers were Asian. As a general rule, when visited any ethnic styled restaurant, it bodes well if their community frequents it. At the time (pre-Covid) they had a full and extensive menu, with the dishes described in both English and I believe, Cantonese. I ordered a simple beef and broccoli. And honestly it was the best I’d ever had! I raved about it to my son, who had just gone to study abroad for the summer in Shanghai, which incidentally was what brought me to California. Anyway, this restaurant had been on my mind for almost two years. Fast forward to this past Saturday 5/8. I’m back in the Bay Area, this time for work, and my son fly’s in to visit. I immediately take him to this restaurant. They were in the midst of an early evening busy dinner rush. I asked for a menu and was given a VERY abbreviated, paper one (Covid guidelines). This one is MOSTLY in Chinese. So I tell the hostess that I was there two years ago, was excited to be back, but was having difficulty reading the menu. I told the lady, who spoke and seemed to understand English fairly well that all I wanted was the beef and broccoli dish I’d had two years ago, a small side of steamed rice (which in Chicago actually comes free with beef and broccoli) and an order of beef fried rice. She says okay and quotes me a total of about $56. I thought that was pricey, but I remembered them being fairly expensive two years ago, so whatever. My order is given to me and I notice that there was this big container of what looked like beef broth, i was told it was a dessert of some sort. I shrugged and went to my car. I opened the container of what was supposed to be beef and broccoli, well there was some mystery meat looking chewy balls with broccoli on the side and some fried dough. I tasted the meat and it was NOTHING like my last visit. So I go back in to the woman at reception. She’s fielding phone calls, a large party enters AFTER me. I tell her that something wasn’t right with this dish. She gets on a walky-talky to a manager, speaks her native language, ultimately ending up waving him over. He walks over and with an aggrieved expression on his face, addresses me and says, “give me a few moments (mind you I’ve been back inside at least 6-7 minutes at this point) and proceeds to seat the parties who had arrived AFTER I did. He comes back to me, I explained that I’d been there two years prior and ordered beef and broccoli from their regular menu, which denoted in English exactly what it was and that I explained that to the hostess and this is what she gave me, which clearly isn’t that. He says, “You’re right, that sauce is different. All you want is beef and broccoli.” I said, yes that’s ALL I wanted, in the first place. He said give me a few minutes. Meanwhile, I politely gave the hostess back the broth she stated was dessert, which I didn’t order. Eventually I get the beef and broccoli I had been craving for two years. And it was good, but not an hour wait and $54 good. This ordeal took almost an hour, for takeaway over-priced Chinese food. I need the difference in the cost of what I wanted ordered and what they charged me, returned to me. And I want them to treat their non-Asian (I happen to be a fairly large, Black woman) as solicitously as they do their Asian customers. Bottom line, decent food with a hefty price tag. Service should be exponentially better for the prices they charge. They seem to better cater to large Asian party’s and aren’t as interested in smaller, takeaway tickets. I no...

I was ecstatic to try this HL Peninsula near Millbrae/Burlingame, given that I’ve been to the Milpitas and South San Francisco ones before, but this one left to be an absolute dim sum nightmare and disappointment, which my taste buds confirmed. Here’s my take on each of the dishes I had here today:

Portuguese Egg Tarts - the egg portion was really creamy, which I liked, but the crust was too thick and way too crusty. Normally, crust falling is normal, but the tart almost completely fell apart. 4/10 in my opinion.

Shrimp Hargow (蝦餃) - the presentation of this was absolute hell. Not only were they all next to each other, but they all instantly sticked onto each other. In dim sum etiquette, that’s an absolute big no no. The shrimp tasted mid, but I would have appreciated if there was a little bit of ginger in the filling.

Custard buns (奶黃包) - first of all, why purple? Unless y’all were trying to make an impression that it was purple yam. This restaurant loves their purple a little too much. The bun color should be white or a little yellow, NOT PURPLE? Also, there was barely any filling in the custard bun. (3.5/10)

Beef tripe (牛百葉) - this tripe was not even cooked well thoroughly. It tasted really rubbery. Pairing of the sauce tasted quite well though, but not enough to satisfy my cravings.

XLB (小蘢包) - the most disappointing part of this dish was not enough soup, the skin of the bao was too thin, and they didn’t provide ginger upon service. I don’t know if you would want to try this at a dim sum restaurant…

Also uncooked meat? BIG RED FLAG.

Service was meh and it just felt really tight in there, atmosphere wise. I don’t know if I would argue with them, but it sure was not a pleasant experience for me.

I don’t know if I’m gonna come back to this establishment. Honestly, I do not represent anybody — only my views. But if you’re coming for the individual and family-like experience, I’d go to the one off of Dubuque - in my opinion, it is so...

HL Peninsula SFO

After arriving at SFO, we decided to try HL Peninsula Pearl for a light dinner. Personally I enjoy Cantonese cuisine and its seafood as it often brings to the memories of my HK visit over 40 years ago.

The setting of the restaurant is grand and deco is above the transitional Chinese restaurant standard so my expectation was high at the beginning.

When the waitress tried to sell us their live fishes, and quickly moved up the price from $38/fish to $50/lb with ~2 lb in average weight, we kindly declined. (The price on the menu only listed price without specifying it as per pound)

Two of us ended up ordering two plates: tofu with seafood at $28 and fresh green veggie (snow pea tip) at $22. The dishes were tasty and we were satisfied.

When the bill came, we found an 18% service charge included (see the photo) in additional to 9.50% tax. We kindly asked the waiter who sent us the bill to remove the service charge, and explained that it should be our choice for the tipping. The waiter said the service charge was fixed by the system. Then a manager (female) came out and told us that the service charge was actually not the tipping but a special charge after the pandemic (indicating that we still need to pay additional tip).

After we insisted that the service charge meant the same as tipping and nowhere in the menu shows that the 18% service charge is mandatory, the manager printed another bill without service charge but with choices of tips.

It is well understood that the restaurants and travel industry as a whole have suffered during the pandemic. However, the customers should not be penalized or overcharged. We sincerely hope the owner to consider our suggestion that either to announce your service charge in advance or return the choice back to your customers for the tipping based on the service.

BTW, we...