Given their target clientele, there's no lack of high-end Chinese restaurants in many of the new Macau casino/hotel complexes. This time right after we arrived and settled in our hotel room, we headed straight out to Studio City nearby for a dimsum lunch at the relatively new Pearl Dragon Restaurant.
What seems to be a quick walk over from our hotel at Sands Cotai Central turned out to be slightly longer than we thought, but we arrived right on time. The décor of the restaurant looked similar to its sister restaurant Jade Dragon at City of Dreams, except the missing open roast kitchen, and arguably Pearl Dragon came with a better view with the window on one side of the restaurant opening up to the casino floor downstairs.
With full anticipation of a
grand dinner in the evening, we only went for a few dimsum dishes. The rice rolls wrapped with steamed grouper fillet and crispy dough was my favorite this afternoon, with this good combination of freshly made steam rice rolls and crispy deep-fried dough. The siu mai with abalone was one of their signature dimsum dishes but I thought it's only okay, with tender fatty minced pork inside a green wrapper (infused with spinach juice) and topped with a small piece of abalone. It has a great bite but I didn't see much improvement over just about any siu mai.
We loved the char siu dish at Jade Dragon on our last visit (probably one of the best I have had), but I thought the sweet maltose flavor in the glaze was too dominant here, even though texture-wise it was as good with the right balance of fat. And portion seems to be small considered the price they are charging.
They got a long list of desserts on their menu, and the steamed sponge cake (aka Ma Lai Ko) was great with soft spongy texture and done with the most traditional method of using raw cane sugar. Petit fours were served with in a fancy wooden box with a few small bite-sized items. Normally I found the taste of durian repulsive but a bite of the durian-flavored macaron is something I could deal with, just for that hint of exotic taste on the palate.
No wine for lunch today but we went for the Anji white tea recommended to us. Delicate, mild flavor with slightly floral nose seems to work well with the dimsum dishes we had, and definitely an upgrade to regular tea offering.
As I said, there are plenty of choices for restaurants of similar caliber serving similar food (and more are on its way for sure). While Pearl Dragon didn't particularly stand out, it went neck-to-neck with the rest and is consistent with its Michelin star they earned in its first year of opening.
More pictures at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/g4gary/albums/72157682141325180
When? May 20 2017
Where? Pearl Dragon, Level 3, Studio City Macau, Cotai, Macau
Menu Highlights? Steamed Grouper and Crispy Dough in Rice Rolls
Web:
https://www.studiocity-macau.com/en/dining/detail/pearl-dragon
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