Who
The Pearl Restaurant
Where
2625 Pioneer Pkwy, Ste 600, Grand Prairie. 972-975-5222.
Vibe Open, lively, exotic.
The Pearl of Tarrant County
You don’t have to leave the 817 to experience superior dim sum. BY IAN CONNALLY PHOTOS BY CRYSTAL WISE
For several years now, since the once-reliable Kowloon Restaurant in Arlington took a precipitous nosedive, eating good dim sum has required meticulous planning. It’s a weekend brunch-ish
chandeliers, thick with the chatter and clatter of large groups, where you can eat boisterously and no one outside of your group will mind, or notice, when you drop a chicken foot in your lap. The Pearl delivers all of this. My dim sum source issued a few muttered affair that, of late, has required a trip complaints that we hadn’t been seated in to places north of Dallas. The troupe the intimate front dining room and were of line cooks and other miscreants with instead sequestered in the banquet hall whom I prefer to eat aren’t often free (or with the families and other riff-raff, but sober) at such times, so the call has to this was just the experience I wanted. go out early if the horde is to survive the Jasmine tea dutifully ordered, we acceptSaturday morning Mad Max battle up ed everything that the first cart to reach I-75 with any semblance of sanity. It’s our table had to offer, supplementing it too far to do often and too harrowing. with an order of beef chow fun from the So I was pleased when my confiplace’s regular menu. dential informant, who Our onslaught knows such things, called began with cheung fun, to tell me that there’s a translucent, slippery rice spot in Grand Prairie noodle crepes wrapped making dim sum that around perfectly briny compares favorably to shrimp and steamed. anything in Dallas CounDipped in chile oil and ty. The Pearl Restaurant, soy sauce, these were which shares Asia Times beautifully balanced, and Square real estate with it was an exercise in reHong Kong Market, is straint to not take a plate close enough to be in each time the cart came a regular, only semiaround. The siu mai, planned rotation –– and open-topped dumplings I’m less likely to die in a filled with pork, shrimp, tangle of fire and steel on and mushroom, were The Pearl is one of only a the way there. outstanding. Wrapped handful of authentic dim Done well, dining in yellow al dente pasta, sum eateries in Tarrant on dim sum is interacthe filling was savory and County. tive, over-stimulating, bright with green onion and gluttony-inspiring. Don’t-Miss Dishes and played excellent foil You order tea, and, beBeef Chow Fun, Cheung to the garlic-and-chilefore the pot has finished Fun, Diu Mai, Congee. steamed short ribs and steeping, you’ve said yes rich, gelatinous braised Entree Prices to a table-filling array chicken feet sharing the of small dishes foisted $10-$15. All major credit table. on you by a just-pushycards accepted. Beef chow fun, enough cart attendant. a tangled pile of wide When My best experiences have noodles, ginger, and soy 10am-10pm Sun, always been in aircraft and dotted with slivhangar-sized rooms ac11am-9:30pm Mon-Fri, ers of tender beef and cented by fish tanks and 10am-10pm Sat. crispy vegetables, arrived
March 2019
Pearl’s cheung fun were filled with briny shrimp.
mid-second volley, and we immediately surrounded it with plates and steamer baskets. Steaming and wok-seared, the chow fun was excessive and wholly unnecessary, but I’ll order it every time I go, and you should, too. Alongside perfectly unctuous, sweet, crunchy-skinned roast pork and har gow, delicately steamed shrimp dumplings, the beef and noodles were a robust centerpiece, an anchor to be revisited between bites.
For me, dim sum always finishes with congee, and it’s usually on this innocuous-seeming, simple dish that I hang my final judgment. The version at The Pearl will call me back there again and again –– theirs is creamy, light rice porridge scattered with scallions and punctuated with braised morsels of sweet pork and umami-laden bursts of pungent preserved duck eggs. I’d gladly drive to Plano for this dish, but I’m grateful I don’t have to.
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