Zest 817 SECRET SAUCE // The Pearl of Tarrant County

The Pearl of Tarrant County

You don’t have to leave the 817 to experience superior dim sum.

BY IAN CONNALLY

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 affair that, of late, has required a trip to places north of Dallas. The troupe of line cooks and other miscreants with whom I prefer to eat aren’t often free (or sober) at such times, so the call has to go out early if the horde is to survive the Saturday morning Mad Max battle up I-75 with any semblance of sanity. It’s too far to do often and too harrowing.

Pearl’s cheung fun were filled with briny shrimp.

PHOTO BY CRYSTAL WISE

So I was pleased when my confidential informant, who knows such things, called to tell me that there’s a spot in Grand Prairie making dim sum that compares favorably to anything in Dallas County. The Pearl Restaurant, which shares Asia Times Square real estate with Hong Kong Market, is close enough to be in a regular, only semiplanned rotation –– and I’m less likely to die in atangle of fire and steel on the way there.

Done well, dining on dim sum is interactive, over-stimulating, and gluttony-inspiring. You order tea, and, before the pot has finished steeping, you’ve said yes to a table-filling array of small dishes foisted on you by a just-pushyenough cart attendant. My best experiences have always been in aircraft hangar-sized rooms accented by fish tanks and 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 complaints that we hadn’t been seated in the intimate front dining room and were instead sequestered in the banquet hall with the families and other riff-raff, but this was just the experience I wanted. Jasmine tea dutifully ordered, we accepted everything that the first cart to reach our table had to offer, supplementing it with an order of beef chow fun from the place’s regular menu. Our onslaught began with cheung fun, translucent, slippery rice noodle crepes wrapped around perfectly briny shrimp and steamed. Dipped in chile oil and soy sauce, these were beautifully balanced, and it was an exercise in restraint to not take a plate each time the cart came around. The siu mai, open-topped dumplings filled with pork, shrimp,and mushroom, were outstanding. Wrapped in yellow al dente pasta, the filling was savory and bright with green onion and played excellent foil to the garlic-and-chilesteamed short ribs and rich, gelatinous braised chicken feet sharing the table.

The Pearl is one of only a handful of authentic dim sum eateries in Tarrant County.

PHOTO BY CRYSTAL WISE

Beef chow fun, a tangled pile of wide noodles, ginger, and soy and dotted with slivers of tender beef and crispy vegetables, arrived 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.

Who

The Pearl Restaurant

Where

2625 Pioneer Pkwy, Ste 600, Grand Prairie. 972-975-5222.

Vibe

Open, lively, exotic.

Don’t-Miss Dishes

Beef Chow Fun, Cheung Fun, Diu Mai, Congee.

Entree Prices

$10-$15. All major credit cards accepted.

When

10am-10pm Sun, 11am-9:30pm Mon-Fri, 10am-10pm Sat.

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