Heeding some suggestions I received, we went to dine at Pearl Liang @ Paddington Central today to try out the dimsum.

The restaurant was posh, furnished in a modern chinese style, dim lighting but the food was disappointing.

Char siew and king prawn cheung fun (£3.00 and £3.20 respectively). Sauce wasn’t as sweet, char siew was dry and quite tasteless. Prawns were fine, quite fresh.

Prawn dumpling (£3.00). Nothing to shout about.

Wasabi prawn dumpling (£2.80). Similar to the first, with a little bit of wasabi in the center. I don’t like wasabi but I was fine with this, which goes to show the wasabi wasn’t really strong.

Xiao Long Bao (£2.80). Loses terribly to Crystal Jade (Singapore) or Dragon-I (Malaysia) and I don’t even think those are the best around. This xiao long bao hardly had any soup in it, and the pork was bland. It should shrivel in shame and hop of the table to enter bao heaven.

Pan fried spring onion and pork bun (£2.70). Bland. Only the skin of the bun had some taste but even then it was mild and forgettable. Nice spongy bun though.

Steamed chrysanthemum custard bun (£2.70). The fried version looks more appealing but I knew that it would be very oily, so I went for the steamed version. This was good: spongy, sweet.

Black sesame rice ball (£2.80). According to the person who ate it: “tastes normal”, and I agree. Tastes like a less sweet version of the ready made sesame balls you find in supermarkets.

Mango pudding (£3.00). I didn’t try this, but my friend didn’t say anything as she ate so I guess it wasn’t spectacular. It didn’t come with as much milk at first, my friend asked for extra.

I heard that the roast duck here is good as well but after trying the dimsum there, I didn’t want to pay for overpriced duck. The first restaurant I went to was way better and cheaper. Should I recommend it here or keep it a secret so it wont be overcrowded and start declining in quality? ;)

The bill for 3 persons.

Side adventure: My friend went to the toilet and rushed out again because she didn’t know which was the female toilet. According to her, one of the signs was definitely male because it had some tell-tale anatomy.

Which would you enter?

Liked this? Read more of my articles at http://phicynosure.tumblr.com.

Want me to review your eatery? Send me an email!