Pearl Liang
Chinese
8 Sheldon Square, W2 6EZ ££
Pearl Liang is an upmarket Chinese based in the pretty yet corporate surroundings of Paddington basin. In contrast to other Chinese restaurants, Pearl Liang also incorporates some south east Asian influence, with the additions of kway teow and pad Thai. We found ourselves at its doors after we were turned away from nearby Korean, Gogi, for not having a booking.
The menu is immense, leaving you so spoilt for choice that you simply can’t decide. Due to this, we decided to go for the ‘pearl liang mix hor d’oeuvre’, simply to cut out the decision making – for £8 per person. Included in this was: phoenix king prawns with crispy pastry, fried ribs with salt plum, honey fried seaweed, peppercorn baby squid and Vietnamese spring roll. The baby squid was delicious and very different from your average portion of calamari; the lighter batter and peppery flavour making it stand out. The prawns were also incredibly tender, whilst the crispy outer shell perfectly light and breakable. The seaweed was slightly flavourless, whilst my rib had a poor helping of meat attached to it, but overall, for £8 a head this was a decent starter choice.
Famed for its dim sum, we decided we couldn’t get away with not ordering any dumplings, so we went for the classic prawn dumplings for £5.50, which came with 4. These were undoubtedly some of the best dumplings I’ve tried; even the casing around the prawns was tasty, whilst the prawns themselves juicy, tender and large. As any typical Brit does, I have an absolute must-order dish when going to a Chinese, and that is crispy aromatic duck – we got a quarter for £9.90. The duck was just as impressive as the prawns, it managed to stay tender and juicy despite the deep frying, and the skin perfectly crisp. It was even a little pink still – something I’ve never seen on any crispy aromatic duck before… these guys know what they’re doing.
Despite the decent starters and very good middle dishes, the greatness sadly didn’t follow. Whilst the egg fried rice we ordered was actually really tasty standing alone, and a welcome change after all the fried and sticky dishes we’d ordered, the crispy shredded beef wasn’t as promising. Whilst I am very aware I ordered something with ‘crispy’ in the name, I almost prefer my shredded beef a tad chewier. The pieces of beef here could literally be snapped in half, almost as if they contained no meat in at all and were just over-fried pieces of batter. I guess it didn’t help that this dish came at a point where we were already both pretty full, neither did it help that it followed a plethora of other fried treats. However, I do maintain that this is the crispiest shredded beef I have ever had – and not in a positive way.
Our bill came to around £75 for two, inclusive of all of the food above and a £17.50 bottle of Chardonnay. It is safe to say that I was suitably tiddly and uncomfortably full for the rest of the evening, so at £35ish pounds a head you do get a decent bang for your buck here, despite the somewhat sophisticated atmosphere. Overall, Pearl Liang is a glitzy Chinese you could frequent for a variety of occasions: the sexy surroundings and surprising intimacy make it acceptable date territory, however, the set menus and sharing dishes also make it great place to come with a group of friends and order as much as possible. Pearl Liang also has super reasonable lunch menus, tempting the corporates and passers-by in with its discounted dim sum and plentiful rice dishes: proving Chinese isn’t only for dinnertime.
OVERALL RATING: ****
https://pearlliang.co.uk/
