Food review: Pearl Dining House is a rare find

I'm ashamed to say that I almost let my first impressions of Pearl Dining House deceive me; it looked so much like an ordinary noodle house that we were tempted to leave. But we settled in, looked around, and noticed that the details were much nicer than the norm. We're glad we stayed, because we really enjoyed the meal.

The menu is limited, and portions are small enough that you get to try more; between four of us, we tasted 13 dishes and finished almost everything. The only dishes we didn't like were the braised sea cucumber with shrimp roe, which, at HK$198, was expensive compared with the rest of the menu, and the braised pork with bean curd sheets (HK$88).

The sea cucumber didn't have the soft texture that we like and hadn't really soaked up the flavour of the sauce. The pork was tender, but it would have been better with more fat. The bean curd skin in the dish was better than the meat itself.

The chilled chicken in Chinese rice wine (HK$68) was well-flavoured, as was the slightly dense broad bean mousse with preserved vegetables (HK$58).

The crispy curry beef brisket (HK$68) had a soft crunch, and the curry sauce - which looked thick and heavy - was lighter and more subtle than we thought it would be.

Highlights were delicate squares of fried soft bean curd (HK$68) and a delicious dish of small oysters stir-fried with spring onions (HK$68).

We saw an intriguing dish on another table, asked the waiter what it was and ordered it for ourselves. It turned out to be deep-fried enoki mushrooms with shichimi (Japanese seven spice), which would have gone well with a bowl of rice and a cold drink. We also liked the hand-pulled noodle dishes: one cooked in a shrimp broth (HK$56) and an assertive one served with Sichuan chicken (HK$56).