Pearl House Restaurant

Playing late-night hockey in Richmond usually affords Gordo and I the opportunity to eat in Richmond afterwards. It works out for us because we are not normally in the courtesy-car capital of BC. However, Gordo just wasn't feeling it this time. He still wanted to do late-night eats. He just wasn't digging the whole Richmond thing. Apparently, our last visit to Yummy Cafe left a bad taste in his mouth, literally and figuratively. Therefore, he wanted to leave Richmond for Burnaby instead. Slight problem. Although there are late-night spots in Burnaby, there are few and far in-between. Originally, he suggest The One, but gosh, I've been to that place far too many times. I needed something different. The only place I could come up with was Pearl House which was just a bit further down on Kingsway.

Yet another Taiwanese joint, it was perfect since Gordo was in the mood for bubble tea and TBN. And as per usual, he started off with a beverage, being the Strawberry Mango Slush. This was served in a large cup which couldn't even hold all of it. Reminiscent of The One, it was a highrise of slush. It was certainly blended well-enough, but it was super sweet. It masked the fruit flavours. And referring to my MO, I had the Chicken Nuggets to start. These were large and indeed very crispy. Chicken was moist and there was definitely a salty, peppery and 5 spice thing going on. This was good. As expected, Gordo went for the Beef Sirloin Noodle with wide noodles. The noodles were toothsome. By virtue of choose wide noodles, they maintained their chewiness throughout. The beef was moist and tender where he pretty much didn't need to chew. The soup had a bit of spice and plenty of seasoning. There wasn't a huge amount of depth, however, it was a respectable bowl of TBN.

For my main, I had the Stewed Pork Belly with rice. This was prepared nicely with 3 large slices of stewed pork belly. The meat was not completely melt-in-my-mouth, but the fat did. It was gelatinous and had everything one would look for in stewed pork belly. The skin itself was really good with just the slightest amount of bite which yielded to fatty goodness. The whole thing exhibited a rich flavour (5 spice and star anise) with full of depth. This reminded me of my dad's stewed pork recipe, which gave the entire dish a home-cooked quality to it. Our visit to Pearl House essentially exorcised the demons of Yummy Cafe. The food was pretty decent and did the job for late-night. Definitely an option for Burnaby.

The Good:
- Decent eats
- Okay service
- Okay prices

The Bad:
- Modest portion sizes