Oriental Pearl

Waited over 2 hours for delivery, cancelled order only to have the food arrive 5 minutes later. Food arrived and was sub par at best. Overall not the best experience with Thai delivery.

Sunday night … my lady and I … you know kicking it … all of a sudden a feeling of a soar throat … what to do. 1. Doctor? 2. Mother. 3. Phở !!! Went with 3 called these guys and in 20 min (good time) I have a soup in front of me … asked for jalapeños but they forgot but I’m okay with that I proceed to eat my soup and I notice 3 slices of beef and like 2 pounds of noodles … not ok with that …

Cheap and decent Vietnamese food in Brookline Village! If I’m ever craving some phở during random hours of the day when I’m home, I come here because 1) it’s close (and I’m lazy at times) and 2) it’s fairly cheap compared to places like Lemongrass.
I normally order their phở special and crab rangoons to go. Phở is okay, but definitely not the best, but hey, I didn’t really expect anything more so I’ll take it. The noodles are a bit soggy and the meat and broth are average and not too MSG-​ed.
Crab rangoons come in a small and large size. Small has about 6, but the cream to shell ratio is wayyy off. There’s like barely any cream in the center, which is kind of disappointing, but again, I didn’t have high expectations so I wasn’t too upset. Overall, this place is so-​so and I’d give them about 2.5−3 stars overall considering convenience, price, quality and quantity. 2.5 seems bad, but I’ll still most likely be back here for more.

This is your pretty basic take out place. I came here because I was so tired after work and needed some sustenance.
There are hardly any tables in the restaurant — in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone eat in the restaurant. Take out is done quickly, especially when I order off Unilocal or Eat24 app.
The food is average — there’s a lot more starch and less protein though. When I order a pad Thai, I get a lot of noodles but really only 3 to 5 slices of chicken. Often the chicken slice are also dry. Please give us more substance!
That said, for the convenience I have a quick takeout restaurant, I would probably still come back.

Delivery took a very long time to arrive and the food wasn’t that good.
The meat was very dry. I think they pour too much soy sauce over everything because it was very salty. The crab rangoons were very skimp. They were mostly dough with a tiny bit of filling.
Will not be ordering from here again. That meat was just terrible.
I ordered from Hsin Hsin before and they were pretty good.

Ordered food from here, and it was supposed to arrive before 11pm (that’s when the restaurant shuts). The driver arrived at almost 2am, after several failed attempts of getting in touch with the restaurant. The food was bad too. It was such a disappointment.

Why am I waiting 1.5 hours for delivery? I ordered a couple things of noodle soup, when then essentially becomes half cooked/​let me finish cooking it in the broth at one work one day. I ordered through an online site and it said estimated time of 45 – 60 minutes. And so I tracked the order, and I watched the time go by. 45 minutes was getting near and I was getting hungrier. There was so much anticipation in waiting for this order that day, I didn’t want to leave the desk because I didn’t want to miss the «your food is here» call. And so 60 minutes rolled around. 70 minutes. So I called Oriental Pearl and what more generic answer than, «it’s on the way.» Surely enough, it was. And I got my food. And it was good. The broth was still hot, the noodles were a bit choppy, but nonetheless, I ate it. And my stomach was happy.

We came in this evening for a family meal. I understand this is mostly a take out place, but still. there are seats and it’s local, so why not. We ordered some Phở’ and some Chinese. Family of 4 and the bill was $ 40. I asked if we could have a pitcher of water and the guy behind the counter says he only has «hot water». Meanwhile another customer comes in and gets a tall glass of ice to go with his coke. Anyways, you’d think a sit down restaurant would have the common courtesy to give glasses of water to customers, especially with small children.
This is where it gets real disturbing. We took our kids to wash hands before dinner and the soap looked like it hadnt been filled in ages! I confronted the guy up front about the fact that it’s sort of gross that a restaurant wouldnt have soap for customers/​employees to use. He had some weird excuse about not knowing and that people throw the soap away,… not quite sure. In any case, he said he would go get some. he goes to the basement and brings back some hand sanitizer (not soap) and puts it in the bathroom. After $ 40 for some mediocre takeout — the lack of cleanliness (and soap) puts this in the «never again» category.

This place is horrible. Ordered via GrubHub. At first we were pleasantly surprised because it arrived really fast and we were HUNGRY. But the food was practically inedible. Rice for both meals was burnt almost black. «Chicken» was apparently composed entirely of gristle and dough. Crab Rangoons were also over cooked and had filling about the size (and thickness) of a quarter. I have never been so disappointed in food in all my life. Currently awaiting a refund.

Basic take out place. Dine in is available but very low key.
Ordered for pick up. (~$ 15)
–Vermicelli with egg rolls and grilled pork
–7 pieces of crab rangoon
The good: everything is packed in 1 compact container. Taste is on par.
The bad: there’s no possible way to eat your vermicelli without transferring it to another bowl since everything is so compact.
Portions would be bigger if you dined at a Vietnamese restaurant. Here they are stuffing everything possible in 1 container.
Rangoons need more stuffing. 70% is the crispy wrapping.
They don’t know their own website. Upon looking at their online menu, they offer a free coke with orders over $ 15. Upon questioning whether I could apply that deal after calling in my order, they asked me where did I see that. «Uhh…your online menu? Oriental Pearl?» «Usually we only apply that for orders over $ 20» «Okay, forget it then.» «…It’s ok, you can have it.» Ok…
I would not even try ordering through their website given this conversation.
Conversation through the phone is very curt. Just ‘hello’ without even introducing who they are. A visit here would be purely convenience driven.

Delivery took almost 1.5 hours; I’m maybe 10 minutes away. When I called to check on my order, the employee was very rude and short with me. When my food finally arrived, my Pad Thai was utterly flavorless and meat was very questionable looking. The delivery guy was nice but that was the only redeeming quality. Very disappointing.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again…
Without giving my exact location away, this place’s proximity to my apartment is absolutely its 100% most attractive factor, so one night when I was late home from work, feeling hungry and tired and just wanting to watch Friends reruns while eating Chinese in the fetal position in my bed, I broke down and called Oriental Pearl.
For that kind of activity, it’s exactly what I wanted.
$ 10 gets you an appetizer, a main dish, and either steamed or pork fried rice. The pork fried rice was delicious, and is the correct choice. The crab Rangoon — my chosen appetizer — was crispy, hot, and hit the spot. The main dish, General Tso’s Chicken, my go-​to, was a little small (relative to the tons of fried rice) and not perfectly saucy or crispy. It was the only vague disappointment of the three, which is a win overall.
For $ 10 and perfect convenience, though, what can you really ask? By no means the best Chinese take out I’ve ever had, but I’ll take it, thank you very much. And besides, the relative mediocrity of the main dish will keep me from coming here EVERY night, which is probably a good thing.

I love the pad Thai, beef teriyaki on a stick and scallion pancakes!!! Also, the phở noodle soup is amazing!!!

I don’t usually write reviews but at first I was hesitant to order from this place based on the reviews. My sister told me it was good so I took her opinion. Most of the bad reviews are because of delivery. Unilocal should have 2 rates… one for food and another one for delivery.
After eating what i ordered, i had to leave a review. Their steak teriyaki is so good. Its tendered and flavored. Their wonton soup is really good too and flavored.

It took an hour and a half to receive my simple order of two dishes. The lo mein was completely mushy and overcooked and drenched in sauce. I asked for tofu and there was none. The scallion pancakes were bland and cold and the thai iced tea was diluted and had no straw. Not a fan; won’t be giving a second chance.

Food was absolutely disgusting. I’ve eaten from here a few times and it was good and yesterday it was horrible. Ordered around 5:30 for delivery and threw the driver a few extra bucks because of the weather, even though I was already charged a delivery fee. Opened it up only to find some of the order was wrong, the fried rice was burned and so was the lo mein. The crab rangoons were cold and the chicken and broccoli was crappy. I threw out about $ 20 worth of food because it was inedible. Tried calling last night to speak to someone and no one answered after multiple attempts. I just called back to speak to someone and they had the driver call back. I explained that the food was horrible and wanted a credit or refund. He said he will not refund and told me it was my problem. It’s my problem the food tasted like crap and I threw my money away? I’m furious and will NEVER throw my money away on this place again. Horrible.

Worst delivery service ever — DONT EVER order from here.
Delivery took over an hour, then the driver called asking me to meet him at a street, because he did not want to park his car. (I live next to a parking lot, so parking would not have been an issue). I told him I could not leave my apartment, which is precisely why I had to rely on delivery. He said he will cancel the order if I won’t come to the street. I repeated I can’t and he canceled the order and hung up on me. I did not receive any food.

I’ve ordered delivery from here twice. I’m over the JP Asian options, and this was the first restaurant that was listed on GrubHub when I searched for dinner a couple weeks ago.
The first experience was 4-​stars– decently speedy delivery time, warm food, well-​packed bag. My entrée was chicken phở, and I wasn’t expecting to like a delivery version so much. I was all ready to file this away as a great busy weeknight dinner option.
But then I tried again this past Thursday, and the experience was not the same. It took them over two hours to deliver. It’s maybe a 15 minute drive to this restaurant from my place, but people order delivery for the convenience. I called to check on the order after about 1 hour and were told it would be delivered in 15 minutes. When the food finally did arrive, the driver was rude. He all but threw the package at me and did not apologize for the wait time. Other places I frequently order from usually give a discount at that point.
The food, of course, was cold. I ordered the tofu rice paper rolls, which I enjoyed a lot the first time. But, 3 of the 4 of them had split open, and there was no sauce. The pineapple fried rice had no pineapple in it and was not at all sweet; I think they switched it out for plain veggie fried rice.
I don’t know if I’ll be trying this place again.

I had always wanted to try this place when I saw it on Foodler, but I would talk myself out of it. Finally, on a night, not unlike any other when I was craving a big bowl of something hot and noodly, we decided to try Oriental Pearl, and I became a believer.
As others have said, they have THE BEST crab rangoons, and you get a decent amount in an order. I also got the Chicken Phở which I can already safely say is going to be my obsession this winter.
Our delivery came much quicker than Foodler anticipated, and everything arrived safely and was packaged well.
I don’t know why I waited so long– this place is going to the top of the list.

Let me start this off by saying that I was a loyal customer of Oriental Pearl — for the last 4 years or so. They had the best general gau’s chicken, crab rangoon, phở, singapore noodles, and so many other things…
But recently, there’s been a huge decline in the quality of the food and service! At first, it was little mistakes I could overlook — overdone chicken fingers, a weird change in recipe for the crab rangoon, and out of laziness when I ordered grilled beef and rice, they sent beef teriyaki sliced up haphazardly upon a bed of rice. All of these things were annoying, but I overlooked them because in the past, I’d gotten nothing but excellent food from them.
Last night was the last straw for me. I ordered some crispy pad thai, and thats it. One item. And what happens? They sent me the wrong item, regular pad thai, and believe it or not, there’s a big difference in taste between the two, and I can’t stand regular pad thai. Also, the delivery guy was rude and actually had me come out to his car to get the food rather than bringing it to me. So, I called the restaurant and tried to explain to them politely that they’d sent the wrong item and that I’d like the correct one sent. After getting transferred four times, they tried to convince me that I was wrong and that I’d in fact ordered «medium-​crispy-​pad-​thai» which is not a thing, nor is it what I asked for. They kept saying I was wrong and that I’d gotten what I ordered, but finally, they said they would «try» to send out the delivery guy with the correct item.
I then receive a phone call from the rude delivery guy who also insists that I’d gotten the correct item, that I’d ordered that, and that if he were going to come back, he was going to bring me the same exact thing. I kept trying to explain that no, crispy pad thai is a totally different dish with different noodles, and as a matter of fact, I understood that the mixup wasn’t even his fault, but that I would really prefer the correct item be brought to me. He got all huffy on the phone and insisted that I was wrong and that I was just going to get another regular pad thai if he made the trip back. I told him to forget it and that they’d lost a loyal customer of four years.
I’m really sad that the quality of food and service at this place has declined so much. They still have good phở, but I will not ever waste another cent on this place.