The Pearl Restaurant — Restaurant in Grand Prairie

I’ve been to many dim sum restaurants in many different states, and I was perplexed as to why such a great book cover can have such a bad story. This restaurant is confusing. It gave me such high expectations when I first entered the restaurant, but as I received the dim sum items from the kitchen one by one with a good 10-15 minutes in between each of them, I started to realize this was a mistake to come here.

The radish cake: was extremely dry on the edges as if it had been sitting out uncovered for a long time, it was not served hot.

The shark fin dumpling: the taste was off putting as it only reminded me of a failed attempt at someone that doesn’t know how to make Chinese food mixing ingredients together without any idea what they are doing. Texture was also not there.

Siu Mai (pork and shrimp): the texture was good, but the flavor was of old shrimp, a bit past their expiration date, and the wrapper appeared to have strange holes formed into the sides. I’ve never seen that before. Kind of concerning.

tripe in scallion and ginger: the tripe was served to me with no scallions or ginger, however it did have three pieces of dikon radish, the tripe is usually a bit more flavorful in my opinion, as this did not seem to have much flavor except for the earthy tripe essence.

The chili oil: it was a basic recipe and not very tasty, I got spoiled with Chi’s dim sum chili oil which has loads of vibrant red chili’s you can chew and eat, with wonderful garlic flavors in the oil. This is just oil with crispy chili’s. I love to mix my chili oil with soy sauce to enjoy my dim sum.

I ordered the beef balls also but I was informed they didn’t have any. So I assume they premake all the dim sum. Since they didn’t attempt to make any for me while I was there for over an hour.

I also thought it was very strange to not hear asian music. And I was very uncomfortable listening to a wide variety of American music. At one point “staying alive” was playing after previously listening to a...

We went in with high expectations- that's the problem.

We had ordered 2 beef chow fun about 2 weeks ago (to go order) and they were by far the MOST delicious chow fun we have ever ever ever had. It was so flavourful and the sauce was perfect!

HOWEVER, today was rather disappointing. Food was so not delicious! At all.

We ordered 2 Beef chow fun, Kyoto chops, sesame chicken, crispy Thai fish fillet and dim sums.

Beef chow fun: had a very strange after taste (bitter), not as saucy as before and it was just eh, we barely got thru half a plate.

Kyoto chops: wasn't tasteful at all. Typical Chinese red sauce. Chops had no flavor.

Sesame chicken: I mean how can you go wrong with sesame chicken- well, here you can! The red sauce tasted exactly like the sauce on the Kyoto chops. That's one thing I honestly dislike when you order different dishes but they end up tasting the same.

Crispy Thai Fish Fillet: it was crispy, but no seasoning, no flavor on the fish at all. It's a bunch of fillet deep fried in non seasoned batter and drizzled with Thai hot sauce (the sweet and sour sauce you buy in a bottle at the Asian market). You can still taste the flour on the batter. THE MOST DISAPPOINTING DISH OF THE EVENING. :(

Dim sum: good, not bad.

We had to ask for rice, how you do eat sesame chicken without rice?? We asked for rice and the waiter brought us 3 small soup bowl size rice- for 6 people.

Our tab was very well over $100 - not worth it. We went in expecting flavourful, authentic Chinese food but got something below Panda Express standard. It really is a shame. It was a 20 minute wait and the restaurant was crowded, maybe they were so busy they forgot how the food should taste. We didn't mind the automatic gratituty that they added to out tab, only if we had gotten the service. Besides bringing our dishes out, we had to ask for rice and pour our own water (we had our own pitcher of water- maybe its a common...

I use to work here , the food use to be so much better when chef Ron worked there . I continued going hoping it would get back to its golden days but no if anything it got worse . The staff have no idea about the items on the menu and the recipes were changed. So even I no longer knew the menu. One day I invited my family and friends to have a nice Lunch together to catch up. One of my friends has a seafood allergy. So every item I would ask to make sure no seafood was in it so we can avoid an allergy . Everything started off fine then I asked for a xiu mai. When chef Ron was there he added shrimp to it so before I would’ve told my friend don’t eat that since I was 1000% sure it had shrimp . Due to the chef changing and recipes changing I no longer knew if it had seafood so I asked the waitress just to make sure . She assured me it did not . I asked them to please ask the chef to make sure . They continued to say it did not have seafood . We believed them and my friend ate it. Shortly after my friend starts to get an itchy throat. Because we started to get suspicious of a medical emergency I asked to speak to the chef to make sure . They refused to bring him out . Instead the manager came out and not only did not apologize for his wreckless waiters but did not offer first aid for my friend clearly having an allergic reaction and blamed me for not knowing the menu changes after chef Ron left the restaurant which keep in mind I stopped working here before chef Ron quit . He then tried to blame me after I clearly said we asked to make sure . Refused to help us so we had no choice but to take my friend to the hospital due to his face swelling up. That manager needs to be fired and the restaurant sued for almost killing my friend and causing his pregnant fiancé that is in her third trimester and was present during the incident for...