Black Pearl

I have never ordered food from this dump. But one of the moronic delivery guys for this restaurant almost ran my dogs and me over in our neighborhood. He didn’t even stop at the stop sign. He rolled right through. He stopped at a home up the street from where I live. When he got out I told him, «Thanks for stopping» sarcastically, gave him the middle finger, and told him to «eff off.» He responded with the same. I know this review will never make it on Unilocal or will soon be removed. I don’t care. Black Pearl, their food, and their crappy delivery guys can eff off.

The Mongolian Beef is sssoooo goooood, make sure to get it 5 stars. Service is very friendly and the foods made fast.

Well where to begin,.I never thought I would leave a review on here but this place is a crime against taste. Everything was awful, The egg rolls, the soup, the brown sludge masquerading as pork won-​tons and the less I say about the abomination of sweet and sour pork the better. I am going to bed hungry tonight, I lost my appetite. I will leave this short and sweet (unlike the pork) please don’t subject yourself to this experience, it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth.

I stopped in for a snack one day. I ordered spring rolls and a Coke. He spring rolls were 100% void of flavor. They didn’t even taste like cabbage and fat! I’m not sure how they did it but if flavorless greaseball is what they were going for they did a bang up job.
Sorry, I won’t be back.

I decided to try this Black Pearl because the other one in Shoreline has good, cheap, authentic food and the servers are very sweet, old Chinese people who make great food and are very family friendly. My partner and I walked in and asked if the food was good. There were two young guys wearing sports outfits, practically hanging off of their buts who dressed and acted so unprofessionally and had so little knowledge of their menu that I wondered if they were robbing the place and had to act like they worked there in the meantime. They shrugged their shoulders and did not get my reference of Panda Express for bad Chinese food as if they didn’t know the difference. I asked if one of the dishes had eggs in it. The guy did not know which dish I was talking about as if he had never read the menu. He asked me «is that just vegetables and tofu» I had to repeat to him that the dish I was asking about was on the menu. The restaurant was incredibly dirty. My partner noticed grease and a piece of rice on his glass. Our dishes were so dirty they could not have possibly been washed. My partner and I began to try the spring rolls which were filled with uncooked cabbage and served with a gross cloudy vinegar sauce. We then decided to leave before receiving our food because of lack of cleanliness, unreal horrible service and bad food. Worst Chinese food experience!

Pretty good chinease food, very friendly service. Typicall chinease food there, not the absolute best ever, but also not bad at all. Good place for lunch for some grub at a very reasonable price.

I’d probably say 1.5 stars if that was an option, for what it’s worth.
We’ll start with this: I think this place used to be one of the best Chinese restaurants of its type (by that, I mean your run-​of-​the-​mill, neighborhood place with lunch specials that include soup, rice and spring roll … the normal American-​style Chinese restaurant that we’re all accustomed too). The food was simply better and more homemade-​style than most. The quality of the chicken — in any number of dishes — was clearly much better than most places of the type. The noodles, etc., were clearly higher quality than most.
I’ve been going there for many years (I used to live nearby and ate there frequently, but moved away more than 10 years ag). In the years since I moved, I’ve gone there for lunch from time to time and it’s just slowly gone downhill to what it is now.
Firstly, everything about the place is old and tired. The tables, the menus, the chairs, the décor. Nothing has changed one bit (or been fixed, replaced, etc.) in more than 10 years. There are Zagat stickers and «Best of Western Washington» awards all over the front window — none of them less than 8 or 10 years old. Even the physical menus are threadbare and falling apart. The waiter today, while perfectly fine in terms of his service, was wearing a plain white undershirt, which gave me the «no one here really gives a damn anymore» feel.
But more importantly, the quality of food has gone from well above average many years ago, to clearly below average now. I had an old favorite of mine today: almond fried chicken (a lunch special). In the past, the breast of chicken was always of high quality — seemingly fresh, never frozen, etc. It was hearty and tender. Today, it was tough, rubbery, cheap, small, thin, low-​grade. Before I could easily cut through it with just the side of my fork. Today? No chance. It was tough to chew and tasted simply cheap.
And this isn’t a new phenomenon.
Black Pearl WAS a VERY good restaurant that has slowly, but steadily and precipitously, declined over the years. I would hope these poor reviews would spur them to reinvest some time and money to get the place back to where it once was.

Awesome service, amazing food and cheap, cheap, cheap. All chicken meals are breast. YES! Loved the Almond Cranberry Chicken. Perfectly cooked and delicious. My new go to place in this part of Seattle. I feel like I’ve found a hidden gem!

Pros: I ordered delivery and everything was piping hot! Sesame chicken was the highlight.
Cons: most things lacked flavor and were dry.

poor food quality
I am going to stay away from this place.

I really hate slamming a restaurant with 1 star and I debated if I should just let sleeping dogs lie. But I just can’t, because I have to help ppl who might contemplate spending good money at Black Pearl.
You would not believe how absolutely awful the food is. Yes, we’re a little bit foody, but we like Taco Time, too, to give you an idea of our range of taste.
PLEASE DO NOT BELIEVE THE MULTI-​STAR REVIEWS! They must be friends of theirs, trying to help out. Instead of trying to boost they’re rating, they need to boost their cooking.
It’s the absolutely worst Chinese food we’ve ever had. We tried their Shoreline branch and it is almost as bad. We were in the neighborhood in Ravenna and thought, well it can’t be as bad. That’s true-it’s worse!
Let me break it down:
First Impression:
We were there for take-​out but could have done dine-​in. We decided against it because the interior is just bleak and none too clean-​looking. Maybe it’s just really old…
First Contact:
A sweet young man greeted us and, I swear, he seemed to be smiling apologetically as if he were feeling sorry for us, as in «Gosh, those poor folks. They seem nice and they’re gonna get so scr%$$ed.»
The food:
I wanted the Curry Chicken but have had it runny in the past so I asked about it. «No,» they said, «It’s not runny.» And it wasn’t. That’s because it wasn’t curry sauce at all. More on that later.
My husband ordered Sweet & Sour Pork and the Almond Chicken.
The sauce for the Sweet and Sour Pork was runny, thin like soup, and tasted of nothing more than sugar, corn starch and some other unidentifiable and disagreeable flavor. And it wasn’t even that garish, but fun, red! It was clear. Like slimy sugar water. I’m not exaggerating.
The pork nuggets were tough and the breading stale, as if they’d been left over from two days before.
My husband had asked about the sauce for the Almond Chicken, worried that it might not be creamy. «Oh, no,» they assured him, «It’s creamy.» Well, maybe by someone’s definition, but not by ours. It was the same consistency as the sauce that came with the Sweet n Sour, only tan-​colored. And the flavor defies description.
It made me think of something I «cooked» when I was four, pretending I’m a Hausfrau like my mom. I did get the apron right and my mother laughing. She said, «Liebling, that is glue you made there.» We used it to make paper mache. Not sure the sauce from Black Pearl is suitable since it’s so thin. But we can try.
The breading for the Almond Chicken was so hard, I feared for my fillings. How do they do that! The chicken was dry but OK.
Now to my Curry Chicken and the sauce: The chicken was thinly sliced and white with the barest hint of greenish-​yellow: They’d put some curry powder on it! Wow! What? Absolutely no curry paste, which is what the recipe calls for.
So this dry chicken sat on top of vegetables. At the bottom was the «sauce.» A greenish-​yellow broth. Exactly like I’d feared. No, worse: Thinner and not made from curry paste. Dismal!
The rice. Bland, Bland, Bland. I don’t know how you can get vegetable-​tofu rice wrong. But they did.
One good thing: Plenty of vegetables and they had that crunch of fresh vegetables.
Well, to us this food was not quite edible. I put it in a pan and doctored it up with fresh curry powder, cream cheese (who knew?) and the rest of the hot n sour soup from Panda. (See? We’re not food snobs.)
We ate it while watching an episode of Veronica Mars, Season 3. It’s the one where Veronica finds out just whom Logan slept with while they were broken up… but that’s another review…
In summation:
If you are still planning on eating at Black Pearl, you can’t say you haven’t been warned. You must be hardy sort, then.
Best of luck to your taste buds,
A Stunned Diner
PS: Today I bought a jar of Sweet n Sour Sauce at Safeway in the Asian section, per hubby’s request. He’s determined to have that pork!

It used to be better, more flavorful. The textures are still amazing. Their meats are tender and the homemade noodles are fabulous. It’s really clean as well.
The service was okay. They forgot our potstickers which are my favorite. Still good overall, just a little bland.

I was not impressed with Black Pearl.
A friend of mine convinced me to go here for dinner, stating that it was «the best Chinese food he has had outside of San Francisco.» I mean, how can you go wrong with a claim like that?
This place is a total dive… which I actually don’t mind because that’s usually a good indicator of a tasty Chinese restaurant. But not in this case. We ordered hot and sour soup, Black Pearl Chow Mein (shrimp, beef, and chicken), and Mongolian chicken.
The hot and sour soup was watery and on the tasteless side. The Black Pearl Chow Mein was a huge portion, but the noodles, although made in-​house, were gummy and tasteless. The bits of meat looked really frightening, like play-​doh. The Mongolian chicken was supposed to come with a thick gravy-​like sauce over a bed of crispy noodles, but again, it looked really watered down, and it was pretty tasteless. No joke, I think the best part of this meal was the fortune cookie at the end.
The service was great, though. The waitress was friendly and attentive. It’s located in a tiny strip mall, but I had no problem finding parking. But in all honesty, I probably won’t be returning.

I live and grew up nearby, and this restaurant has been here forever. I’ve given them several chances over many years, and they just. Can’t. Make. Fried rice. I can’t make fried rice, but I’m white and I never ever cook!
Sometimes I wait at the bus stop right outside and I see people inside eating (never more than one booth occupied), and they always look disappointed, discontented, dissatisfied, generally unthrilled. And yes I looked disappointed up in a thesaurus.
Please somebody buy up this space and put a better Chinese restaurant in. Or maybe Mexican, Wedgwood needs a Mexican restaurant.

Man, I feel like I’m handing out four stars like candy recently. I almost gave this place three, but then I remembered the fried rice and bumped it up. I got the General Tso’s chicken here and an order of their house fried rice. For one person, this is a lot of food with price to match, but it just meant I had left overs to tide me over for three days.
The house fried rice was excellent. It has chicken and shrimp cooked in it, which while adding a bit of flavor and texture, did hit the moisture factor a bit. Usually, with just normal egg fried rice the opposite can be true as it can be overly greasy. Still looking for a solid middle ground. The General Tso’s chicken was delicious, though not spicy. If you want spicy, I recommend somewhere else. But expect a giant box of huge chunks of chicken slathered in tasty sauce.
I would say you get most of your monies worth, but if you have differing expectations/​tastes, you may end up disappointed. So, be forewarned.

I used to go here a while ago and it was really great! Ordered food for delivery once and it was SO bad!!! Ordered again because I thought it must be a fluke but it was EVEN WORSE!
Just really really bland, poorly cooked… the potstickers were so inedible that they went straight to the compost! I hope the worms liked them.
Won’t order here again):

Fantastic! I think this is the Chinese restaurant/​delivery I’ve been looking for here up north.
Their menu has lots of options including tofu choices, mu shu, and homemade chow mein noodles, but it’s not so big it’s overwhelming.
We ordered crab and cream cheese won tons, kung pao tofu, honey walnut prawns, general tso’s chicken, and brown rice. It was ready in 10 minutes (we picked it up).
The won tons were good and made with real crab. I think I have to finally admit I prefer them with fake crab (I know…). The honey walnut prawns were very good. We’ll definitely reorder these often! I loooooved the kung pao tofu. It was spicy but the sauce wasn’t sticky sweet and the flavors of all the ingredients (including the fresh vegetables) came through. The general tso’s chicken was good with sticky sweet sauce and all white meat. This is a big deal for me because I’m picky about meat. The brown rice was perfect and went well with everything.
I am super excited we finally tried Black Pearl because our delivery options for good food in Ravenna was a pretty short list (Pagliacci and Jewel of India). Black Pearl fills out spot #3.
Definitely recommend for takeout/​delivery. I haven’t been inside yet so have no opinions about that.

Sadly, it has to be done…
My husband and I live about a mile from Black Pearl and we ordered from there for the first time last night. We haven’t eaten out very much in the past couple of months and thought we’d splurge and get some Chinese delivery. We had seen the Black Pearl delivery car in our neighborhood, so we decided to try them out.
I searched the menu online and I decided upon the Meal for 2 for $ 32.50. This option would allow us to try a couple of entrees, an appetizer, a soup, and rice side.
We chose the following:
Hot and Sour Soup
Pork Won Tons in Spicy Peanut Sauce (choice of stars)
Sweet and Sour Pork
General Tso’s Chicken (choice of stars)
Fried Rice
The one good thing I can say was, the service was friendly, and the portions were decent. However, only ¼ the food was appetizing or edible and it was overall quite disappointing.
One of the first questions I asked the person who answered the phone was — «How hot is 5 stars? We like it HOT, so hot your eyes water.» This was apparently not descriptive enough, because our 5 star appetizer and General Tso’s did not have a hint of heat!
The dish I was most disappointed in was the Sweet and Sour Pork. The sweet and sour pork sauce came in a separate container from the pork. It was a very runny liquid that was almost clear and had strong hints of sour with canned chunks of pineapple in it (I’m assuming this was the Sweet). There were also about 3 slices of carrots, onions, and green peppers. I was disappointed to not see the glowing red sauce that thickly coated the nuggets, which I’ve had at many other Chinese restaurants. But that wasn’t the worst part of this dish, the nuggets tasted pre-​made and the bits of pork inside the nuggets were tiny and hard to chew. It tasted like gristle and inedible.
The rest of the dishes were just okay and ultimately disappointing, since our «going out» splurge in the last couple of months, left us with a stomach ache and leftovers we can’t eat. (I hate to waste food.)
The search is still on for an affordable Chinese delivery in our area.

Disclaimer/​caveat to this review — I dislike chinese food restaurants. But I really enjoy Black Pearl — and it’s not just because I would come to stuff my pregnant belly after prenatal yoga next door. They make really good noodles. The veggies are fresh and the chicken is all good white meat. Oh, and it comes really hot with not too much overly salty sauce. It’s a great chinese food restaurant in Seattle. I’m a fan!

Terrible, just utterly terrible. I really don’t understand how other reviewers are able to give it more than a single star.
We had ordered the orange beef and potstickers and none of these came out right. The orange beef was a mess of overly corn starched beef and their potstickers were greasy and not flavorful at all.
Will be crossing this restaurant off our list.