Pearl Harbourfront Chinese Cuisine

I went to this place because it is close to my work. We had several team lunches here. It costs about 20+ per person. This place is probably one of the most expensive dim sum restaurants in Toronto. I love dim sums, and ate a lot of dim sums. To me, the food here is average standard, good quality, but definitely overpriced. I am not paying for the food, but paying for the views. I think there are better dim sum places in Markham and Richmond Hill. The service is pretty good in Chinese restaurant standard, but I feel I lose something when the waitresses and waiters are nice. It does not feel like Chinese restaurants. I probably go here when there is a groupon deal available.

This place is great, awesome service, great fresh food. Staff speaks English. Great date place, great ambience

We’ve been patrons of the Pearl for over 35 years (they originally started on Dundas St and Bay in the 80’s before migrating to Queens Quay) I have to say they still get 5 stars from us as its still our favorite Dim Sum place in the GTA. We went for dinner New Years and had another enjoyable meal. Can’t beat the view, service and spacious ambience. Although the prices have risen markedly over the last 10 years; everyone in our party felt it was still worth it.
The restaurant will be closing for 2 weeks to undergo a renovation in 2016 so can’t wait to see how it turns out. I actually prefer the Pearl to the other high end Chinese restaurants in the GTA. (Lai Wah Heen, Dynasty, Casa Imperial… etc). It’s our go to Chinese for visitors from out of town.

I’m surprised this place has such a low score on Unilocal.
Their shrimp dumpling is the freshest I’ve ever tasted in North America and probably second only to those in Hong Kong. Service is not great, and they push you to order, but that’s what you expect at a dim sum place…
Overall very happy with the variety and quality of their dim sum. It is on the pricier side and the location is a bit hard to find (second floor of a very vacant looking… mall/​office building?)

Wonderful service! Best dim sum in town I would say!
For dinner, it is a western service Chinese restaurant. All the other Chinese restaurants I’ve been they serve what you ordered without order or time lapse– they basically put everything on your table as soon as they can. But here Pearl serve dinner in a order that make sense and they pace it out base on how fast I eat, so dishes are always hot and fresh. It’s no rush, it makes me feel very comfortable. I find it heart warming to be able to enjoy Chinese dishes like French cuisine.

I used to come here in the past because I really enjoyed their view of the water. But it had been almost for years since I last came here. Dim sum was what I often came here for in the past. And sometimes, I would come here for dinner – though not as frequent as for dimsum.
It was a slow night when we came here on Thursday. That was great news for us because that meant service was going to be pretty quick: we didn’t have to wait very long for our food. We got the grouper with king mushroom and the eggplant with spicy garlic sauce. YUMZ! Both were excellent individually, but were also great together as well. The fish was a little over cooked (just a little bit), but otherwise the dishes were excellent.
The service was polite and very prompt.
The food tasted good! They were both very flavoursome.
Pricewise…I think it’s OK, but probably a little more than it could be. I thought it was worth the price though.

Very good atmosphere with an amazing water view.
Very good dimsum.
The dinner here is also very good.
The only issue I had was that the price was a bit steep. But that’s what you get for the spectacular view!

Beautiful views I can imagine on a sunnier day. Spacious, decent pricing, and the traditional dimsum cart rotations at least gives it some authenticity being that’s it’s located outside of Chinatown and geared towards tourists. Food and service was satisfying.

This is probably one of the priciest Chinese restaurants that I’ve been to but the price reflects the location and view. Get a window seat because you can get a beautiful view of the harbourfront. The service is also a notch above most Chinese restaurants and so is the interior.
The shrimp dumplings were pretty good. Amongst one of the better ones I’ve had. They were large and there weren’t any unpeeled shrimp in them, which some restaurants leave in carelessly. The scallop dumpling, which I’ve never had before, was also good and filled with shrimp and scallops.
We also wanted to try some non-​dim sum dishes so we ordered the rainbow crystal (?), which is the dish you get after peking duck… with the iceberg lettuce filled with minced pork and goodness. It was pretty good though although I’ve had better elsewhere. Lastly, we got the standard Yeung Chow fried rice which was good as well but again not the best I’ve had as some of it was clumping a little bit. Considering, the fried rice was over double the price at most other Chinese restaurants, I expected a little more but again the prices seem to reflect the atmosphere and view, not the food.
The restaurant is on the second level of a building so it’s a bit harder to find.

Been here many times: lunch, dinner, banquet, and take out. All superb quality and friendly service.
You can’t beat the view being right in the water.
Today I had take out from the lunch special menu. I ordered Singapore vermicelli. Not greasy and very flavourful.

I regularly order their food for delivery! I love the consistency of the taste. The Honey Black Pepper ribs are delicious! The prices are slightly pricey however you get what you pay for. There delivery is always amazingly fast as well.
I have been to eat in the restaurant and with the lake views and friendly service it was also a pleasure to dine in.

Quality of dimsum is not comparable to places uptown in Richmond hill/​Markham but it has a great location by the harbour, which was the reason my rating increased from a 2 to 3 stars. Make sure to make a reservation to get a seat with a habourfront view or else it will most likely all be filled up by noon.
Service was relatively fast and it was nice how they rolled around carts of dimsum although there wasn’t much variety in the carts. One thing that really put me off was that I crunched on quite a bit of sand in one of the pieces of curry cuttlefish dish. We also got hurried out of the restaurant by the staff after around 2 hour seating.

Good waiter service. Friendly.
Great view of the lake.
Located on the 2^nd floor. We came in the mall from the south side and took the escalator up.
Food was good but not exceptional. Will only consider for special occasions or showing people the city.

I finally decided to try this place out after hearing good things about it. So I go there with my mom for lunch. We made reservations for noon. I requested a window seat and they told me they would see what they could do.
We get there and were seated promptly. The waiter comes around asking what kind of tea we wanted although he was holding jasmine tea in his hands. I asked about the type of tea with flowered tea leaves and he tells me it’s chrysanthemum tea. So I say that’s what I want. He seemed very annoyed and walks away. Strike 1.
So we are seated by a window seat but some time goes by and only two dim sum carts come by. I ask the waiter if we can order dishes. He rudely asks what I would like so I replied equally rudely that I will need to see the dim sum menu. Strike 2.
So I ordered the regular dim sum fare — ha gao, xiu mai, chicken feet and beef tripe. All of this tasted mediocre. Luckily we ordered shrimp and veggie dumplings, deep fried shrimp paste in eggplant and scallop deep fried in Taro which were excellent. The only thing I regret not ordering was the deep fried seafood balls (which I had to inquire about from another waiter since our waiter was all attitude, nowhere to be found and not helpful at all).
The service overall was decent, if you do not factor in our waiter. The view was spectacular — we had an amazing lake view. The table setting was top notch fine dining style. The damage was $ 53 with tax and tip.
I definitely recommend trying this place out for the eggplant and deep fried shrimp dish, the deep fried seafood balls, and the scallop deep fried with taro. Also for the amazing view. But I’m giving them a 3 star because their regular dim sum fare tastes mediocre, the service was below par, and the price is kind of high given that 70% of the food is mediocre.
Another thing I just realized is that to top things off, we never got the menu so we had no idea what each dish cost other than the fact they were small, medium, large or special. How’s that for keeping someone in suspense?! Striiiiiiiike 3, yoooou’re out!
Parking is pay parking by the half hour ($ 3.50 or $ 4) or flat $ 10 if you can walk from the third parkade further west. We found free parking by the tip top loft condos but it’s quite a walk.

I was in town for business and stayed nearby, so I figured I’d try it. If you go at night in the winter, there’s really almost nothing to see, so don’t expect a great view under these circumstances.
The restaurant itself is very unassuming but large, and when I arrived on a Monday night, there weren’t but a few large tables full of families dining. The service was excellent, almost too attentive, but definitely not poor.
The Dim Sum is very good, but by no means am I a Dim Sum expert. I had the Shrimp and Spinach, and found it to be very flavorful but not overly salty. I also had a chicken with sauteed vegetables. It was served over well-​prepared white rice and despite there being a lack of sauce with the dish, it was also very flavorful without causing me heart trouble from extreme salt levels.
This is a good place to dine but it does seem a bit overpriced, even for an American getting a good conversion rate from CAD to USD.

Expensive? Yes. But it’s probably the best dim sum in the megacity (aka not markham)
Sample of 30+ meals:
Must Try:
— Sticky rice in lotus leaf [nah mai gai]… the legit full size
— Stuffed green pepper
— Steamed BBQ pork buns [Cha siu bao]
— Steamed scallop dumpling
— Scallop cheung fun
— Silver noodle /​shrimp /​chicken dish that comes with a glass bowl over it
Recommended:
— Sesame seed balls [jin doy]
— Shrimp dumplings [ha gow]
— curry squid
— beef tripe
— chicken feet
Good:
— Siu mai
— Turnip cakes [law bak go]
Conclusion: Just order anything that starts with an S, (minus the sponge cake)
Bonus: Incredible views, even in the winter.
P. S. The harbourfront area can be very expensive. For a sit down meal + lake view, the price isn’t absurd.

I came here for a CNY work event. Our department had over 120 people and had a preset menu. We pretty much took up the whole restaurant.
Firstly, the location is unsuspecting but maintains a gorgeous view of the lake. It’s in the plaza next to the harbour front ticket booth on the second floor beside the food court. Excellent view, I can during winter and it was still beautiful.
Because we had ordered before hand we had a set menu that consisted of these items: hockey puck dumpling, siu Mai, shrimp rice rolls, fried spring roll, fried potsticker, fried shrimp in wonton, sesame ball, mango pudding, curry rice noodles, beef rice noodles, chicken fried rice and chicken pie. Of these items, I found the quality great. Being a chinese restaurant, the salt content was right up to par. Everything was flavourful. All of these items were $ 24.00. There was a lot of food but the menu chosen lacked variety as it was chosen to benefit the westerners in our group and to ensure the price wasn’t too muh as normally dim sum dishes start at $ 4.00 for a small to $ 8.50 for special items.
The service was great. We got there at 12:00pm and we’re all promptly served and able to get out of there by 1:15p.
I will definitely be coming here again in the summer to enjoy the view and also check out the rest of the menu with my family!

Once again, an extremely overrated experience. This isn’t the best dim sum the city has to experience but it might be the most expensive
See pictures for what we selected
Honestly, nothing was amazing. Nothing was even great. We tried so many things… Pork, shrimp, eggplant, beef. Everything was bland. Just meh. Even the sticky rice was over cooked. They make them in batches so maybe some turn out better.
Around noon, they bring out all the popular food options on cart. Expedient and great if you want to see what you get. This also means the food is not warm though.
There’s a nice view but a crazy draft by windows.
The place is also run down if you pay close attention. Exposed ceiling vents, peeling walls… Makes me worry about the care people take
Worse yet, the service staff was so rude. They barely checked in, not even to take the order. We had to ask for water. And they tried to rush us out. Very rudely.
I will not be back. Worse spent $ 30 ever.
I say head to Spadina/​Chinatown for real (er) deal. Lose the Harbourfront chic and gain in value and taste
I RECOMMEND: The green beans in bean sauce. Most flavourful dish… which says a lot. The pan fried pork dumplings were a distant second.
EXTRA TIP: Beat the brunch rush. It’s empty at 11 and lineup-cause-it’s-packed by noon

It’s our favorite Dimsum place in toronto.
It’s fresh, has a lot of selection, the food is super fresh did Iention that the food is super fresh and tasty? It’s got to be because this place is always busy at brunch time on the weekends yet you don’t have to wait long for a table if you just walk in, we try to make a red but have rolled up hungover on many weekends with no res and got seated within 5 min. That said we try to make reservations.
My recommendations shrimp fried rice (it’s super fluffy)
Hockey pucks (shrimp heaven)
Shrimp wanton
Hargao (shrimp dumplings)
Steamed shrimp dumplings
Crispy shrimp dumplings
Green beans
Extra mustard, hot and soy sauce!
Can you tell that I’m a fan of the shrimps?

Whenever I have guests visiting Toronto, eating dim sum at this Pearl location is a ‘must.’
On the second floor, you get a beautiful view of the lake. It’s not a cheap eat here as you can probably find cheaper places in Chinatown; however, this place is quite clean with some great menu items and, as mentioned, there’s a great view of the water. Parking is a pain here (especially with the construction) so try using the TTC to get to Pearl. You can’t go wrong with anything on the menu. I’m not the biggest fan of Chinese food, but I can even eat (and enjoy) at this restaurant.
A few days ago, we ordered items from both the regular and dim sum menus. I would highly recommend the spicy eggplant (portion is generous so you can enjoy it the day after at home) and the rainbow Crystal something something (I order it each time, but can never remember it’s name).
Good for: tourists, Chinese food

Pearl est un excellent restaurant de cuisine cantonaise haut-​de-​gamme avec une vue imprenable sur le lac Ontario. J’y suis allé au moins huit ou neuf fois en dix ans et la qualité a toujours été de mise.
Je recommande bien entendu le Crystal Fold, un mets où du porc haché est servi dans une belle feuille de laitue craquante: le contraste chaud/​froid est parfaitement réussi.