A couple of months ago Catherine expressed a desire to try dim sum so of course I said I’d be up for it. She did the round robin email to check who’d be interested in going but surprisingly only D said he’d be up for it! Maybe it was probably the thought of eating chicken feet that turned most people off – ha ha.

I suggested a couple of venues to try out but Pearl Liang was number one on my list as it has
been on my To Eat list for some time now. I can’t even remember who recommended it to me it was that long ago. To my surprise we discoverd that it was located just behind Paddington Railway Station. This demonstrates just how little I know of my own neighbourhood!

Its kind of strangely located in a new plaza as part of Paddington Central. The area was strangely desserted but the restaurant itself was fairly busy. Pearl Liang has a wow impact factor when you walk in reminiscent a bit of Ping Pong style of decor but I think just a little bit classier (not that Ping Pong is un-classy by any stretch of the imagination.) The giant wooden abacus is amusing and at the entrance is a fountain and fish pond. The chairs are very un-restaurant like – pink and … I don’t know how to describe them really! The toilets are hidden in plain sight so to speak behind a giant door that has been made a feature in the restaurant. Quite opulent.

But, as my brother would say – I don’t care about the decor – what about the food! I left it up to D and Catherine to make some choices on the menu. Pearl Liang have opted, as have so many other yum-cha restaurants, for the tick what you want style of ordering. Interestingly we weren’t provided with any menus which was quite strange!

We ended up ordering 13 dishes and 1 dessert dish with choices including more traditional offerings of Steamed Pork Bun, Prawn and Fried Dough Cheung Fun and the less traditional offerings of Zucchini Prawn Dumpling, Wasabi Prawn Dumpling (some bite but not as much as expected) and Octopus cake. Somehow we also ended up with about 4 differing versions of fried spring roll with the Crispy Duck Roll being the clear favourite.

Good sports Catherine and D also tried their hand at the tripe and chicken feet. Though neither of them were big fans of the chicken feet I think they did enjoy the flavour but found it too much hard work. D really got into the tripe – which, admittedly for me is not something I have at every outing, came in a surprisingly tasty ginger sauce.

I could find no fault with the food. It was all superbly cooked, very fresh, very tasty and definitely high quality ingredients. The menu had a few unusual combinations on it, which is nice to see, though I think they could have provided a few more options. The price is pretty spot on – including the 12.5% service charge we paid £15 each (which also included a £1 charge for tea each) so was it was not astronomical. If there is any where they can improve it is with the service – friendly when we got it but at times strangely slow or non-existent. For example when our tea had finished we did the universal sign for “please top up with hot water” (placing the lid on the handle) and not only did it take a very long time for it to be noticed when the waitress took it away to top up she never came back with it. Further, when I asked for water for the three of us the water never came and it took Catherine going to the bar to ask for it again. Otherwise food was efficiently ordered and delivered.

Overall a nice dining experience. I’ve read many reviews where it has been let down only by its service. To be fair it won’t be the first or last Chinese restaurant to have that charge levied at it! Still, considering it is good in all the other areas I can’t see why it can’t just deliver on customer service.