Asian Pearl 2009

Unbelievable is the handling of the Asian Pearl.
Right after finishing the Tofu Dessert, there was a bug with many legs in the bottom of the Dessert bowl!
We brought this horrible situation to the lead person.
There Attitude is something fly in there!!! It was DEAD!!!
No Compassion! !!
I have been watching their business Go Downhill!
The Attitude is what makes a business. The Attitude stems from the Heart. A Heartless Business!
Time to call in a Health Inspector!!!

Asian Pearl is one of the largest Dim Sum/​Chinese Restaurants in South Sacramento. I usually go strictly for Dim Sum. The location is great… next to smaller shops/​boba pads. The parking is HUGE so it is never an issue finding parking.
If you come on the weekends, you should come early and beat the brunch/​lunch crowds because the wait can be up to 30 – 45 minutes… Sunday’s seem to be the busiest.
Again, I strictly come for Dim Sum because usually they have a great selection of dishes. Now, I said «Usually» because some days, you are waiting and the Dim Sum carts are not flowing, its the same cart with the same dishes on it… OTHER times, its GREAT… MANY carts with so much selection of food… on the good days, you can fill your table with delicious food in a matter of seconds…
I really enjoy the Fried Taro Root Dumplings, Har Gow, Steamed Pork Ribs, Shrimp Noodle Rolls, Donut Noodle Rolls, Steamed Beef Tripe, and the Daan Taat (Egg Tarts)!
The service is OK… you get what you get at a BUSY Chinese Restaurant… they are friendly BUT do not expect them to ask «how are you doing.»
I would recommend trying Asian Pearl if you were in the area or compare DIM SUM to other places in the area.

They are dating themselves by using the name Asian Pearl 2009. The other Asian Pearls don’t have a year tagged onto their name.
I’ve only been here for wedding banquets. The back of the restaurant can be used as a personal hall for big banquets and partying. They even have a separate entrance to get in which is a nice touch to have. This place can be transformed from your typical Chinese restaurant to an elegant dining experience. Both of my cousins held their banquets here and both times, it was transformed with pretty sheer white drapes, designer lighting to cast the romantic mood and simple floral designs on each table. It did not look like a typical Chinese banquet at all. No red to be seen anywhere. It had all the modern day brides dream design with the belly filling Chinese dishes to go with it. Plus, there’s plenty of room for a big dance floor, photo booth, karaōke setup, dj booth, caricature artists and a beer station.
They served the traditional 8 – 10 course menu. It always start with the cold cuts, then the soup and a fine orchestrated round of delicate plates to fill the tummy and then some. By plate #3, your pretty much full but the plates keep coming and you have to keep up with the tastings. The grand finale dish is always fish, the cousins threw down and served baked sea bass, which was out of this world delicious.
I enjoyed the reception and especially had a good time seeing the relatives come together. And as for the newly weds, congratulations to happily ever after! Cheers to both cousins that wedded here in back to back years!
NOTES: Service was weird. Most times, we had to help the server with the dishes. We either had to move a dish out of the way or take the one out of her hands and put it on the table ourselves. We expected better especially since Asian Pearl is considered a higher-​end Chinese restaurant.

I’ve tried the dim sum here as well as the regular food they serve during weddings. I think their food is pretty good. But it’s not as good as one of their other locations.
I recently went to a wedding here and I questioned how well they clean their dishes. I looked at 3 cups and it looked like they didn’t even bother washing it. It was dirty and had dried lip stains on it. I asked for additional cups and saw them grab it and hand it to me. I checked and it was just equally dirty. Instead of being thirsty the entire time, I cleaned the cup myself

I had heard such great reviews about this place. My husband and I decided to pop in one day for their dim sum lunch.
The restaurant is big and accommodates alot of people, big enough for a banquet. It had the usual asian décor… such as a dragon or horses on the walls and figurines on side tables around the place.
We weren’t even greeted. We had to ask a waiter finally if we were to seat ourselves. He said no and pointed us to another gentleman who also wanted to ignore us as well. Finally seated, the servers were pushing carts of dim sum everywhere, but not towards us… even though or plates were empty.
After flagging down servers for dim sun that wasn’t even freshly prepared. I was done. After trying 3 to 4 things I was sadly disappointed and told myself never again.
I don’t reccomnend this place if customer service and good food is important to you. I think it might be a hit or miss with this place.

Asian pearl is mainly know as a dim sum place but if you look more into their menu you’ll discover other yummy dishes beside the dim sum items. I highly recommend the lobster with scallions and ginger, it’s the
! It’s Super busy on the weekends because everybody and their families want sum dim sum, including myself.

Mother’s Day is obviously a busy day for them. We came at open and it was already busy. We were seated with a short wait and was asked how many adults and how many children we had. They would later charge all adults $ 1.20 each for tea, regardless if they drank it or not. They didn’t even ask if we wanted tea; they just dumped down two pots of tea and left. If they want to charge for adult entrance fee then they should just call it that instead of disguising it under «tea.» If nobody in your party will drink tea, mention it right away so they don’t bring it to you, and if they do, refuse it, and refuse to be charged for it later.
I wanted to order something from the kitchen so I flagged down an employee and she told me to «ask someone else, I only do seating» and kept walking past me. Okay, so it was up to me to identify someone who’s qualified to take kitchen orders. Couldn’t she have at least waved to the right person to come help me instead of just leaving me hanging? Plus, they never brought us water so asking then was not an option. Needless to say, service was lacking.
Anyway, carts were slow to come and selections were few. And whatever we did select was nothing extraordinary. The food wasn’t great and the slow and unhelpful service didn’t compensate for it so this is a pass for us in the future.
Current Dim Sum prices as of 05÷08÷16:
Tea (per adult) — $ 1.20
A — $ 2.68
B — $ 2.98
C — $ 3.38
D — $ 3.88
E — $ 4.28
F — $ 4.68
T — $ 5.38
K — $ 6.68

This is the most disgusting, low service customer service ever. Called for reservations for a party for 12. Got there and the place was almost empty with no customers. We stood waiting to be seated and no one noticed us for 5 minutes. Finally came to us and and seated us, even though there was no customers waiting. Took us right to the back next to the kitchen where all the dirty dishes were at and it reeked of sewer! We asked to be seated somewhere else within the restaurant since the place was empty and there were so many other seating for a party of 12! They said no and ignored us and helped other customers who were already seated and eating! My whole group just stood around in the middle of the restaurant just waiting and asking to be seated at another table. They kept refusing and we eventually just left!
Mind you there were no customers, just a few eating at tables and we had a group of 12! This restaurant is disgusting! Customer service is horrible and no one that helped us spoke English and if they did try it was only a «no» Never coming back and never recommending

It’s probably on the low end of Chinese places I would ever suggest to go to. Their food isn’t very good.
I’ve come several times for weddings, dim sum outings and whatnot… And I’m not impressed for how much money I am forking out. I came on a Sunday to dim sum with my sisters and friends… Seems like they were running out of food on the carts so we ordered some entrée items (that were supposed to be on the dim sum carts). They charged us entrée price and then later brought them out on the carts… Guess they figured since they were making our batch that they would make more for the carts. It would have been cheaper if we were able to order them on the cart. :(
I generally wouldn’t say no if someone wanted to go here, but I wouldn’t suggest it. There’s so much better dim sum and Chinese food in Sacramento.

Came here for dim sum on a Friday afternoon. The place was packed and we were seated quickly. Like many Asian restaurants, the service was mediocre due to language barrier. A improvement in customer service is a must. Carts were not moving fast as needed.
Regardless of customer service, if the food is good, I will definitely return. However, this was not the case. Comparing to a restaurant the I usually go for dim sum, I did not care much for some of the dishes such as the shrimp balls and the turnip cake. The shrimp balls were very oily and soft; the crispiness was not there. The turnip cake was cold and soggy. These two dishes were probably been sitting out for a while.
There were some dishes that was tasty such as the spareribs and chow fun rolls. The taro bits in the spareribs dish made the dish. It gave the spareribs a hint of sweetness to balance out the oil that it was soaked in. The chow fun rolls (come in shrimp, beef or pork) are freshly made and topped of with a sweetened soy sauce/​ponzu based sauce.
To be exotic, my husband ordered duck tongues. Under the impression that this was served warm, beware it was served cold. Some of the duck tongues were still lightly frozen.
Overall, I plan not to be coming back here any time soon.

Unfortunately, this place doesn’t live up to the Asian Pearl name. Staff here was rude and the taste and temperature of the food was completely off base. They kept on trying to pressure us in ordering their $ 30.00 a pound lobster and when we refused their attitude completely changed.
To make matters worse, they over charged us and when we brought it to their attention, their response was «well we didn’t charge you for the soda»…

Continuing on my search for a dim sum place in Sacramento that could mimic the flavors I grew up with in Hong Kong. Tried Asian Pearl today (a Sunday) after multiple recommendations, and found it to be quite good, but with a few misses here and there.
The visit started with an annoyance — the guy took me to a table off to the side where the dim sum carts were slow to get to. I asked him to put me further toward the center but he refused. He claimed my location (near the fish tanks) would actually be more advantageous — it wasn’t. I had to wait about 10 minutes before the first cart rolled by, and it made for a much slower and more frustrating dim sum experience than it should have been.
Other than that, the service was fine (I didn’t experience rudeness or other forms of irritation). All of the cart ladies I encountered were Cantonese speakers. I overhead their limited English as they promoted their items at nearby tables, and they were generally able to get their points across, but don’t expect them to engage in any extended conversation in English.
The décor of the place was OK too — seemed somewhat updated, with good lighting.
With those things out of the way, I concentrated on the food, and here’s the play by play:
1) Pork and Shrimp Dumplings /​Siu Mai — Probably the best I have ever tasted in this area. They were about 50% bigger than your typical siu mai, but the filling was smooth and flavorful, and the wrapping was very tender.
2) Chicken Feet /​Fung Zow — Nicely done. Not spectacular, but nothing to complain about.
3) Sticky Rice with Chicken Wrapped in Lotus Leaf /​Loh Mai Gai — Also well executed, but a bit too small for my taste. I would give Happy Garden a leg up on this one.
4) Sticky Rice Bun — Different formulation of sticky rice than #3, wrapped inside the same kind of dough you would use for Man Tou’s (a bun commonly found in Northern Chinese cuisine). This was fine — not terrible, but nothing to write home about. I probably won’t order it again.
5) Steamed Pork Buns /​Cha Siu Bao — This would have been a winner (great texture, good bun-​to-​pork ratio, etc.) except that the bbq pork inside tasted a bit funny. Not spoiled, but just didn’t taste right.
6) Turnip Cakes /​Loh Bak Goh — This was a low point of the meal. The cakes themselves were flavorful, but you could tell they used too much corn starch, and didn’t put in enough accompaniments (like dried shrimp, mushrooms, Chinese sausage, etc.). Unlikely to order this again.
7) Shrimp Wrapped in Rice Noodles /​Ha Cheung Fun — Similar to the steamed pork buns, this could have been a huge winner, with large pieces of shrimp wrapped inside a very tender and silky rice noodle exterior, except that every shrimp on the plate had a fishy taste to it.
8) Shrimp Dumpling /​Ha Gow — Excellent. Large and thick pieces of shrimp inside thin, transparent wrappings. Could rival some of the better places in Hong Kong.
9) Tofu Dessert /​Dou Foo Fa – Haven’t had this in a long time, so I was glad to see the cart roll by, and especially glad to see that they still provide the traditional ginger syrup to accompany it. Not the best I’ve had, but it met all the basic criteria, and was a good way to finish the meal.
I think it’s worth mentioning that all the flavors were authentic and reminded me of home. Also, they seem to have a wider variety of non-​standard fare than the other places I have tried to date.
As for pricing — they have a tiered structure labeled by letters. «A» items cost $ 2.68; «B» = $ 2.98; «C» = $ 3.38; «D» — $ 3.88; «E» = $ 4.28; and «F» = $ 4.68. Think there is also a «T» level, but I didn’t order anything there, so I don’t know the price for that.
At first glance it seemed like a scheme to charge you more, but remember that most other restaurants use a four– to five-​tier scheme also — small /​medium /​large /​special /​ (and sometimes a fifth tier called «supreme»). My items were pretty well-​distributed across the spectrum, and my whole meal cost just about the same as the other dim sum restaurants in the area. For some reason they didn’t charge a tea fee today, but that would have been minimal anyway.
Oh, and a wait began to form shortly after 11:00am, so I would recommend getting here earlier if you want to minimize your wait. I arrived at 10:45 and was seated right away.
So, all in all, this is worth a second visit, as long as I remember to avoid some of the misses from today. I would also recommend this place for its range of offerings. Would have given them four stars (same as my rating for Happy Garden) if it weren’t for some of the inconsistencies and failings noted above.

Attended a prix fixe half-​banquet-​hall dinner last night for an organization. So many people, so loud– I just sort of clammed up and sat there.
Bathroom was in the back– had to walk past a wedding celebration going on behind the removable wall in order to get there. Whole, deep fried fish, chicken and assorted greens came out (on separate plates) as well as the all too familiar honey walnut prawns. Fried rice was served with some sort of seafood and was not my favorite. Lobster pieces were awkward to manipulate. Sea cucumber/​mushroom/​greens dish was interesting, but the best part of that dish was saying the words «sea» and «cucumber» in succession.
It wasn’t that I was unfamiliar with most everything there (been there once before, didn’t enjoy it too much then either) but I didn’t enjoy it enough to return of my own volition.
UPDATE (3÷8÷16): Received this message from an Alan C. via Unilocal today–
«The fact that you Are not familiar with cantonese cusine doesnt make this a two stars place. Thats exactly whats wrong with Unilocal.People shoud never write a review if they Are not familiar with The cusine in fairness of The restaurant.»
1. Thanks for telling me how to use Unilocal.
2. Thanks for telling Unilocal what is wrong with it.
3. Thanks for helping me figure out to which restaurant I will probably never ever return.
The above was (and is) honest, and will most likely never happen again. Good luck with your restaurant Alan– you have many many others waiting for your tables. Just not my cup of tea.

I came with my friends for dinner. After being seated, they didn’t even give me the full menu and I have to get one by myself. No server was there serving us. It took forever for food to come. In fact, we never get one of dish after an hour and a half wait. It seems that they only want to serve customers who speak Cantonese.
For food quality, I must say I have better cooking skill than the chef here. You can tell when someone didn’t pay any thoughts to your food.
It’s shame that there is just too few competition in Sac area. Otherwise, it’s unimaginable for a business like this to survive.

Dine in 3 people order dim sum. Food taste pretty good except the color chicken feet. it was disgusting. I figure the meal was like 40 – 50 dollars but it ring up to be 60 dollars. I just pay I didn’t ask for a break down which is non intelligence of me. There was a line I didn’t want to hold up the pay line. About to give the order the meal togo. To see what’s the cost and see how much I got rip off. Also wanted to order Portugal style custard tart but no one pushing cart seem to have it. Ask 3 different person and all three say later they will have it
Eat at 1200pm left at 1:00pm and they still don’t have it. I know they busy but that kind and the scam on my bill might cause them to lose customer one by one.

I have never left a dim sum experience hungry and so upset.
I came here one weekend around 11 – 11:30am. The wait was manageable… maybe about 20 minutes. The two of us got seated at this large table on what one is probably their ‘dance floor’ during banquets. As a result, the dim sum carts were not allowed to roll across this floor. We had to walk over to each car to pick our food– if we could even catch one. I think we only got 3 – 4 plates total before we just gave up and decided to go get a second lunch somewhere else.
I will admit, the food is pretty good. But the service is horrible. It took us 20 minutes to even get our check so we could get out of this place. I was so upset I don’t think I’ll be returning.

Is the service bad? Yes. Am I cool with that? Yup!
I love getting the taro here. Their selection could use some more variety but as a creature of habit I don’t mind.
If you don’t want to wait for a table then make sure to get there by 11:30 on Sunday. The line will definitely be out the door!

Pros: Great price, good variety for dim sum, authentic Chinese food
Cons: Wait staff is often rude, service is lacking, interior seems old and unclean in some parts
I’ve only ever been here for dim sum on Sundays but I keep coming back because it’s a great place to get some variety for dim sum. The price is good and the food is pretty authentic compared to places like P.F. Changs or Fat’s; nothing against them but I wouldn’t really consider either place as a place to get «real» Chinese food.
This restaurant is no-​frills in terms of interior design, menus, but the one thing that bothers me is the service. Some of the wait staff are difficult to understand and they don’t check on you or bring you refills so be prepared to flag them down and be pro-​active if there’s anything you want. The same goes for particular dim sum dishes: if you know what you like don’t be afraid to get out of your seat and look for the food cart that has what you want (bring the paper with the checkboxes with you). It’s the lack of service that makes me give this place a 3-​star review, but don’t get me wrong, if I was judging this place on food alone, it would easily get 4-​stars. Just remember, if you eat here for dim sum on Sunday afternoons be prepared to be proactive otherwise the service may not meet your expectations and ultimately ruin your experience.

So quite possibly my biggest issue is lack of friendliness and customer service. I’m not sure if the manager is overworked or just stressed out, but it shows. Probably the aforementioned. I see her seating people, taking names, setting out tea, and cleaning up as well as taking calls over the phone. She needs more help with her for sure! She’s the only one at the front!
The food is good though and I would rate as 4 stars. I usually like har gaw and the shrimp and noodle roll. The beef ball, is good and the dishes aren’t greasy like most places. This place is crazy busy for a reason! The tables are big for large parties which works perfect for our clan of 7. They have enormous rooms and have filled them up this 4^th of July weekend.
Come here for the food, not for the service!

«40-​minutes later no pan fried home noodles»
A majority of my reviews range in the 3.5 to 5 star spectrum, but sadly this will be my first 1 star restaurant review.
I’ve been here several times before and had a pleasant experience with food and service, but today was a whole different story. We only had a few dishes, chicken feet, sticky balls, haiguo, and some other type of haiguo during lunch time. Personally, its quiet intimidating if your party doesn’t know Cantonese or Maderine because your dish could contain something that you are allergic to.
I could be wrong but i was asking for a pork dimsum (TBH im not sure if they even have pork dimsum) and I specifically said i’m allergic to shrimp. They nodded and the cart server lady said: «This is pork no shrimp (nodded)». Guess what, it has shrimp. I had to wash my allergic reaction down with some water, chicken feet, and some of the sticky sesame seed rice balls. But what really got my gears grinding, was when we ordered pan fried home noodles (dried crunchy ones) before we got our haiguo, chicken feet, and rice balls.
40-​minutes later no pan fried home noodles. We were extremely disappointed and I finally asked if we can pay our bill as i was walking to one of the waiters. Suddenly the other waiter said «your noodles are coming», but we just didn’t have the appetite anymore. We declined the dish but they still forced to get a profit from us even though we didnt want it. So we were billed $ 10.95 on a dish that took 45 minutes to cook and serve.
Above all i give this place a plain ‘F’. There is no point rating the food quality if service was that atrocious. I dont think i’ll be coming back again… Good bye Asian Pearl!
Yes you earned a profit but you lost two good customers…