Black Pearl Asian Cuisine

First, the good: extremely clean and the service was impeccable.
The food was a little above average. I had an egg roll an Mongolian Beef. There was certainly nothing wrong, but not knock your socks off good.
The bad: the place was empty during the height of lunch hour. Like creepily empty. It made me nervous it was so empty, like I was interrupting something.
I’ll probably go back as this location is closer to my office, but hopefully there will be some other people eating to lively it up some.

We had two very good meals and will be coming back. The service could not have been better and more respectful. Even the music was calming with the overall ambiance very peaceful and good for conversation. My chicken in black bean sauce was one of the best versions I have ever tasted.

It was authentic delicious Chinese food. The service was amazing. Overall great experience

Went on a Saturday night at about 8. The place was scarily empty. It is a very large place and literally there was only one other table taken. Not a comforting sign. Started with egg roll which was ok. Crispy but nothing out of the ordinary.
Went with the beef with black bean. It was flavorful but waaay over the top salty. At first I couldn’t figure out where the salt water coming from. Then after tasting each ingredient separately I found it. The damn black beans. Apparently they forgot to soak them or something. Almost made it inedible. The rest was cooked well. The veggies were crispy and fresh.
There is potential here. But with no one there and just passing food it’s not looking good.

Best real Chinese restaurant in Birmingham. Not american Chinese food but authentic Chinese. A lot of things on the menu that you can’t get anywhere else. Create your own hot pot. So delicious. Both locations are great.

We were excited to see a nice Chinese restaurant at this location. However, our first and only experience here was not good. Food is expensive and just mediocre, with the exception of the crab rangoon, which is filled with delicious crab and cream cheese filling. Took us a while to get waited on, and while a table of Chinese diners next to us were catered to, we barely got noticed. Had to wait FOREVER for our check to arrive. Overall, there’s just a weird vibe with this place that we didn’t like. We’ll continue to give our money to Great Wall and Mr. Chen’s.

Y’all please go and check this place out the food is awesome and the owner she is the best. They truly care about their customers and I always get a warm welcome every time I enter the door. So you guys go go go go and check this place out.

I wanted to like it. I tried it 3 times because I really, really wanted to like it. I love the Black Pearl on 280, despite the fact that it has probably been over a year since I have been as it is pretty far from where I live. When I heard they were opening a Black Pearl on Lakeshore, I was so excited because Lakeshore is significantly closer to my home. I looked for its grand opening for months and within the first week of it actually opening, hubby got take-​out for me to try.
The take-​out lunch was subpar. I will be honest that I can’t quite pinpoint what was wrong with the cashew chicken and sesame chicken the husband ordered. They just weren’t good. Edible but not good. I blamed it on the husband for ordering the wrong things and picking such Americanized dishes to start. How can I determine if the new Chinese restaurant is any good with sesame chicken? Did I mention I really wanted to like it?
So we went back a couple of weeks later and tried the hot pot. If you have never tried hot pot, let me explain. Basically you order plates of raw food (meat, veggies, noodles, etc.) and cook it yourself in a soup base. The flavor of the food comes from the soup base and the dipping sauces they provide. So you can imagine how important the flavor of the soup base and the dipping sauces are. Well, the soup base is average, nothing to write home about but not bad either. Now… their dipping sauces… well, what dipping sauces? You go to any good hot pot places and they would have a bar of individual ingredients for you to make dipping sauces along with a few already made sauces for those that are not experienced in the hot pot world. All Black Pearl gave us was garlic, sesame paste, and hot sauce. Those ingredients do not sauces make!!! It was sad. The meat, veggies, & noodles you can order come raw, so there isn’t much to say about it. Well, other than the fish was a little too fishy which probably meant it wasn’t as fresh as one may prefer and there weren’t too many choices of greens. Regardless, I will give the fact that they offer hot pot at all some credit.
A couple of weeks later we went back again, this time with extended family. I wanted to like it so much that I figured the third time is the charm and, who knows, the family could potentially point out the errors of my ways. We ordered all of the items they recommended — big plate chicken, pocket tofu, pork belly with dried veggies, fresh caught fish, etc. Bad, all bad. The only time the word «good» came out of a party of 7 was regarding the freshly fried French fries we ordered for the kids… and multiple adults were eating those fries along with the kids because that was the best thing on the table. Yes, sad, but so true!!!
Oh, one important thing I forgot to mention earlier, the menu is ridiculously over-​priced in comparison to other (better) Chinese restaurants in town.
We gave it 3 tries, we won’t be going back for any of the dishes. Maybe we will go back for hot pot sometime if I can convince myself to go to the trouble of making my own sauces at home first…

No cars in the parking lot, we were seated right away. Server was very helpful. Appetizers were out in eight minutes and food was out shortly after. Had Sichuan chicken and Mongolian beef and both were excellent.

My first visit at either location.
As with other reviews, first impression was very clean and new. Since this location just opened anything else would be concerning.
Despite not being very busy, it took a moment for someone to acknowledge me and to be seated in one of the many vacant booths. I was a little early for lunch but not much more crowded when I left.
Order was taken in a reasonable amount of time.
I ordered the cashew chicken with fried rice and egg roll. I also added a small hot & sour soup.
The soup was very spicy. More so than usual.
Egg roll was not crisp almost as if it was reheated.
Cashew Chicken was good but contained far more vegetables (carrots, mushrooms, celery & zucchini) than chicken, at least double. So much so that I was repeatedly asked if I needed a box for the remaining vegetables.
I may give it another chance to be part of my regular lunch rotation but not in a rush to try again.

Today my wife and I stopped in to the brand new black pearl in Homewood. The atmosphere is very relaxing, the staff is professional and the restaurant (unlike many in Huntsville where we are from) is extremely clean. The dishes we ordered were the homemade pan fried pork buns, szechuan style grilled whole fish, xinjiang market chicken, and shredded pork with rice cake. All I have to say is this place is excellent. I have experienced Chinese from the San Francisco Bay area where I’m from near China Town that doesn’t compare to the food Im able to get right here in Alabama. With this kind of Chinese now available, Birmingham will quickly overtake many other foodie city’s.

The second location of the Black Pearl restaurant is now open. It opened last week and they have a large menu that offers both Americanized dishes and a separate section with a variety of authentic Chinese dishes. Many of the dishes are Szechuan style.
The dining room is huge, and especially compared to the location on Highway 280. We dined on Wednesday night, and were greeted by familiar faces from the original location. We had a party of eleven, and were seated in a private area that is towards the back of the dining room. The room was perfect for our party. It had a large square table with a large Lazy Susan in the center.
We ordered a bunch of different dishes, and had a few leftovers. Here’s the list of what we ordered
Won Ton Soup
West Lake Soup
Mapo Tofu
Braised Tofu Stuffed with Vegetable
Brown Mushroom with Baby Bok Choy
Beef Brisket with Potato
Salt & Pepper Shrimp
Handmade Pork Dumpling
The XinJiang Market Chicken
House Fried Rice
Fried Fish in Sweet and Sour Sauce
Overall I thought the food was pretty good. My favorites were the Won Ton Soup, Mapo Tofu, Braised Tofu Stuffed with Vegetable, Brown Mushroom with Baby Bok Choy, and the Fried Fish in Sweet and Sour Sauce.
We dined on Christmas Eve’s eve (December 23^rd). The staff was friendly and helpful. When we left the staff wished us a Merry Christmas. It was like a scene right out of A Christmas Story. That was priceless.