Level 1,
1 Teed Street,
Newmarket
Auckland,
1010

(09) 523 3696

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3 out of 5 stars

For over three decades Pearl Garden has been the benchmark in Chinese restaurants for Auckland. The family run business in Newmarket has won numerous awards, including the 2008 Metro Best Chinese Restaurant tag, and has been serving up Cantonese cuisine favourites to Aucklanders since its doors opened way back when.

Fortunately, after 33 years, Pearl Garden has maintained its lofty standards and not succumbed to the run of the mill Asian food hall tastes many of us now come to accept when ordering European favourites sweet and sour pork or beef with black bean sauce.

The Kan family operate the restaurant headed by matriach Pauline. Originally the Kan family restaurant started out on Newmarket’s fashionable main strip, Broadway. For a short time the family were involved with Jade Garden in Khyber Pass Rd before relocating Pearl Garden to a shop-front site in Teed St.

Today the restaurant is a level one space tucked in behind coffee grinding magnate Starbucks on Teed St. The space is light and airy, decked out in typically – but tasteful - Chinese decor complete with intricate wooden carved chairs. There’s a west-facing balcony which is covered for the colder winter nights, but can be opened up during summer for customers to bask in the setting sun.

For big groups and special occasions there are plenty of large round tables. I was dining with just two others so we were shown to a smaller round table towards the balcony area where a nice breeze was floating through the open glass doors.

We’d decided on coming to Pearl Garden for dinner and so skipped the popular lunch-time Yum Char, but were able to enjoy the more relaxed nature of the restaurant in the early evening. And although there were others – both small and large groups – around us, eating at night also meant we could take advantage of the quiet street and vacated parking spaces just opposite the restaurant.

Our drinks order was taken and delivered before staff came back to jot down our meal selection which included crispy duck ($29), chicken with black bean sauce ($23) and beef with seasonal vegetables ($23) and rice to share ($3.50).

The dishes arrived shortly thereafter and were placed in the middle of the table to share. None of us wasted any time in dishing up the steamed rice on to our plates and heaping spoonfuls of the selected meat dishes on top. Conversation came to a lull for a few minutes while we digested the flavours. My friend said he was using a local eastern suburban Chinese takeaway, where he can order a dish with rice for under $10 and still have leftovers to cure a hangover the next day, as a benchmark.

The silence was broken only when he announced Pearl Garden had topped his local ... just.

Once we’d devoured all we could plates were dutifully cleared and a doggy bag of leftovers presented followed by a steaming plate of warm hand towels.

We sat and waited to be asked about dessert or any additional drinks, but no such service was forthcoming. Perhaps the average customer service was the only negative to an otherwise pleasant evening. That and the fact it’s a little bit more expensive than most would be used to for Asian cuisine, but like they say ‘you get what you pay for’.

After a while we settled the bill ourselves at the front counter before heading back down the stairs and out into Teed St.