Perlas Restaurant

I went there for a private Salsa Dance November 2014 and not only wasn’t it set up but the previous party’s guests were still there eating!
They finally got rid of them, hurried to clean for our party (while guests were arriving), rearranged tables and chairs THEN while the dance was going on STILL ACCEPTED MORE CUSTOMERS!!! And some waited on line for our food!
I have never seen such UNPROFESSIONAL behavior at a location… EVER! So, our private party wasn’t so very private at all!
The food was good but I had been looking for restaurants to have my daughters graduation party-​NOT PERLAS FOR SURE!
(Sorry-​WAY TOO MANY CAPS!)

Good food, reasonable prices, fancy décor, and GREAT Service (our waiter was Mark). Crispy pata was nice and crunchy. chicken adobo and kare kare were also good.
If there is anything that stood out it was how nice and attentive our waiter was. At first I didn’t want to eat here because the place was totally empty. Honestly in my personal opinion the place doesn’t merit the overall atrocious rating it got. I almost didn’t come here bc of the Unilocal reviews it got.
Cons: empty, limited menu (I’m guessing bc the place is empty all the time?)
Pros: good service, good food, open late.

Their service and customer satisfaction is the worst I’ve ever seen in decades!
We reserved a table for a group of 16 people since our friend is performing that night. When we arrived the table was only good for 10, patience persist so we just cramped ourselves on that table. Every time a waitress passed by we asked for a menu and it took more than 30mins before we were given service. After waiting for another 40mins or more our food finally arrived and not surprisingly it was cold except for the sizzling sisig. After the meal we ordered drinks and just enjoyed the show and ordered more drinks.
Here comes the time when we asked for our check since its almost closing time. It shows that we were overcharged of 2 people of the cover charge of $ 10.00 per head and that was corrected. Since it was almost closing time and paid our bill and just stayed on our table, we were asked 4 times by the staff if our bill is paid.
Never again would I step in that horrible place.

This place is the tackiest Filipino place Ive ever been to. They’ve been close for awhile and when they reopened we all expected it to be better that it once was. Heck no! They redone the place to try and look upscale but it just doesn’t work, everything looked like its a whole big mess. And the food does not help either. Expensive and disgusting. Their fried calamari was undercooked and nasty and the «marinara» that came with it tasted like it came directly from the can. If you are to come to this place, come for the company never for the food unless you want to be disappointed.

This place is pretty pricey but the food are awesome. I highly recommend tthe lechon kawali (deep fried pork) super delish and pancit kanton (mix vegetables with shrimp noodles)

The place itself is very nice, the ambiance makes it feel upscale. The boat-​like counter is over the top and takes up most of the room in the not too big place but its different and i liked how there was water around with fishes. Not really necessary though but I get what they were trying to do.
As for the ordering from the menu, half the things I asked for weren’t available. Though it was written on the menu, like risotto, pizza (ordering it for the kids) but we were in a Filipino restaurant so it was confusing they had Italian dishes but it wasn’t available. I really was annoyed with that. Anyway I ended up ordering sisig and lumpia shanghai. Those were under appetizers but I wanted them as my main dish. The two dishes were so-​so. The sisig didn’t have the egg on top and tasted the peppers throughout my meal, super greasy too. Felt like oil was coming through my pores or something. The lumpia shanghai was a huge disappointment. No flavor at all, so bland and just a waste. I’ve had better from Ihawan. The other food my hubby and inlaws ordered were really good. The crispy pata, was on point! So crispy and tender loved the flavor of it too. The kare-​kare was so flavorful and on point too. Also the sinigang was good, my daughter enjoyed it a lot.
There were only 2 waiters when we went on a Sunday around 1pm. Slow service but wasn’t in any rush. The waiters kept apologizing on the wait since the place was getting packed with customers. It was understandable. It was a good experience. Oh yea they have a huge drop screen that was showing ny 1 news the whole time we were there, pretty funny I thought.

We came here last night for John Arcilla show– performance was great but the food and service suck! This place is not ready for this kind of event, my food never came after three hours of waiting and asking the waitresses for 5 times! My wife’s food came tho after 2 and a half hours later but it was the wrong one, we also had to ask for water x 4 times before they bothered bringing the pitcher in, so for the whole three hours we were there we had water and shared the 8 pcs of lumpia my other 6 friends ordered for appetizer! The food experience was so awful we r traumatized not to ever come back here again or recommend to anybody– the only good thing is Krystal’s just across the street so after the show a group of people from perlas including us went there and had a hearty meal. Bottom line don’t go to this place coz u will get very disappointed!

This is the renovated «Perlas Restaurant» (‘perlas’ stands for ‘pearl’) and I came here because I promised a good friend that I’d be watching the anniversary performance of the Sound of Manila, a tri-​state-​based band known for performing mostly Philippine-​songs (including those so many pop songs in English but composed in the Philippines. English, btw, is widely-​used in the Philippines — for those who may be surprised about this fact & those business-​owners who may want to consider that nearly 100-​million populated Asian country to market /​sell their products/​services). As expected, the place was packed, and I think everybody’s happy, relatively, despite the troubles of being here. The place is far, far better than the old one — my new found friend, her first being here & she drove all the way from New Jersey (closer to Pennsylvania, actually) with her family, guessed that it appears to be «classy» with the way it looks now, after I tried to describe to her how it used to look years ago. I like the fact that it has got high ceiling, which gives it more space, especially when you see that there’s a stage where events are expected to take place every now and then.
Judge me biased (I don’t care!) but food here tastes good, too. Mind you & you may find this arrogant (I don’t care! LOL), I eat Filipino food these days only when I’m with Filipinos (I live with those who were mostly born and raised here in the USA) I tasted their bulalo (beef bone marrow-​based slowly-​cooked soup with vegetables), grilled baby octopus pieces, pancit (the far better tasting version of sauteed rice noodles mixed with meat and vegetables) kaldereta (it could have been goat or beef, can’t recall now, but it’s a kind of a meat stew with potatoes and peppers). This is where you may want to try Philippine cuisine, if you’re not familiar with it. Nothing fancy, really. It’s still food: very edible, very tasty, lovingly cooked and served to customers, some of whom don’t know any better to realize that Philippine cuisine is basically regional. i like to believe dishes prepared here approximate what you can expect in the national capital region (Manila, the capital & nearby cities and provinces) —they taste similar to what we would have back in the homes of my family and immediate relatives. keep in mind, some of those Philippine foods you may have had before must have come from other regions of the Philippines (it has 7,100+ islands).
It’s good, too, that, the security staff here is not Filipino (he didn’t look like one to me). Somehow, it gives you a sense that things are done the American way as well in this place.
Overall, service has been kinda slow for some unclear reason to me. I’m not sure if the service staff are enjoying themselves as they do their jobs.
But I’ll be back, and will try to update my review.

I came here with my girlfriend and automatically should have followed my instinct to walk out when we realized we were the only customers for dinner on saturday night.
First upon entering the place, took us through the maze of tables to a table with the best view of a projected Adele concert. The furniture of the booth we were seated at felt old and stale and wreaked of a lavender cleaner. It was noxious at some point. We soon realized the entire restaurant wreaked of it.
We ordered an order of Calamari, shanghai, grilled salmon and a creamy seafood pasta. The calamari was pretty good, and the shanghai were burnt. As for the salmon, I have no idea why the waiter asked me for the temperature that I wanted my salmon cooked, because when I asked for it medium it came out tough and over cooked. The creamy seafood pasta was okay, but some of the pasta was undercooked and crunchy.
The woman who seemed to be the manager of the place seemed to be busy talking to her friend and showing off her office than the customers in the establishment being myself and my girlfriend. and the waiter was continually on his phone, talking as he walked passed out table. It made me wonder why it took 15 minutes to make a lychee icetea, when it came out tasting like it was water with a lychee on top.
This place is cluttered and way over the top. It doesn’t speak to the neighborhood. The prices are well out of range to the competition. Instead it looks like lounge with too many tables and not enough people. There is simply too many tables and the lights are too low for any kind of dining experience.
Word of advice, find less scented cleaning products or air freshener for the restaurant, the only aroma the customer needs to the sweet goodness of the food.

Don’t be fooled by this restaurant’s looks.
This is the worst Filipino restaurant in the neighborhood. The decoration looks good, but service and food deserve 0 star.
I just ordered bulalo to go and it cost $ 34.86+$ 2 charge for the container. Seriously, who charges for containers for food to go?
After I paid $ 47, the lady pulled out a calculator and goes, «here is your $ 10 change SIR.» I don’t know what kind of calculator she is using, but when I told her that wasn’t correct, she didn’t agree. (Okay, not to be mean, on a regular day, I would just drop it, but how can she not give correct change, when she’s already using a calculator)
One would expect quality food for that price, but heck, I could get more food and better food for way less.

When it comes to the food… it’s great, but it doesn’t compare to Ihawan. When it comes to the service… it’s awful! They automatically add a gratuity on every order no matter how many people are in your party. Since gratuity is automatically added… servers don’t have to work for their tip; therefore service is lacking. For example… I had to flag someone down to check on a drink order 3 times. It took them 30 min to bring me my avocado shake. Then I had to flag someone down to give them my food order. The last time I went, they over charged my check! They were nice about changing it and apologized but this is not the first time I’ve heard of this happening at this restaurant. The way the restaurant is ran in terms to charging their customers seem a little «shady» and greedy. Come on… this is the states not overseas.
2 Stars for the food…

The food was excellent. We ordered calamari, Grilled Salmon, Grilled Tilapia wrapped in banana leaves, Crispy Pata, Pancit Bam-​I, Calabasa with Sitaw & String Beans in Coconut Milk. The Crispy Pata was a little salty but good.
The façade was Japanese with Nipa Hut bangs. The interior décor tried to impress but the computer printer generated menu did not. The bar resembled an oversize ship docked at a little koi stream. The design tried to be eclectic Al Fresco Italian but suddenly failed sitting on rattan chairs and bright tropical lighting.

Place is relatively new and competes with Filipino restaurants across the street. Décor and furniture are nice though I’m not sure if it gives a Filipino ambiance. Service is uneven and can use a lot of improvement. Not a big menu and a couple of the items we ordered were not available. Pumpkin soup was good. Food took a while to come out. A huge ‘movie grade’ screen was showing basketball game on stage and switched to Netflix movies afterwards (I don’t get it, but it seems pervasive in a lot of Filipino restaurants. Can’t we just enjoy eating without watching TV). Seems like the waiter manages the video as well as the food service. Food is good though not distinctive. At some point management needs to refine dining experience if they are planning to cater to other nationalities. Is this a restaurant or a movie theater? What if the patrons just want to eat in relative peace and quite and not have to listen to all the loud noise? A nice music in the background would be nice.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS PLACE!
I totally disagree with the previous posts. I have been here a few times and have not yet been disappointed.
The interior is very elegant and upscale. I adore the tropically feel and the décor. The wait staff is nothing more than friendly and catered to my groups needs.
The food is AMAZING. Since being an international restaurant Perlas offers an array of different cusines. Having tasted a majority of the menu I’d recommend to get the lumpia (filipino egg rolls), crispy pata, and pancit.
Not only was the food awesome but they has a live performance so it was basically a dinner and a show.

I completely agree with Kelly R. The interior of this restaurant is a weird combo of themes. Pretty tacky. But that would have been forgiven if the service and food were great, but they weren’t. For a party of four, they added tip of 18% automatically which explains the snarky, confused and unprofessional service. We got there at 5pm (when they opened) on a Sunday evening and already they were out of multiple items on the menu. Minutes after the dishes that were available arrived to the table, servers were already asking if anything could be cleared. Huh? Also we had to ask multiple times for extra plates (we were eating family style) and they would just bring one at a time every five minutes.
Food was not much better. The only redeeming item that we got was the Crispy Pata which was cooked perfectly. The Pancit Bam-​I, Kare Kare and Beef Tacos were all flavorless. Such a disappointment.
I think I will be sticking to my neighborhood go-​to place of Ihawan2 when I am craving Filipino food. Service may be touch and go there, but food is delicious. Save your time and money and skip this place. It probably won’t last anyway.

Just like the first review, the restaurant interior is pretty nice. But other than that, I would give it one star. Food is overpriced and they have limited variation of food. It’s supposed to be a Filipino restaurant but the menu consist of some other food and some of them they don’t even have it on the menu. The waiter was nice but other than that food was bland. I could get the same food at Krystal’s or ihawan for a cheaper price. I would t come here again

The outside and entrance is nice, which makes it feel like an upscale restaurant. The interior design is a mosh of themes that is confusing. You forget that it’s supposed to be a filipino restaurant. But the service was horrible and the food was bland. I mean maybe I should be a little lenient since they just opened 2 weeks ago but the group of people celebrating a friends’ birthday sitting next to me didn’t get one of their orders and have been waiting for more than an hr and one lady even walked out of the restaurant yelling/​cursing at one of the waitresses. I think the waiters/​waitresses don’t really care about treating the customers right because there’s already a service charge included in the bill so they don’t need to kiss up/​be nice just to get a tip. That was my first and probably the last time I’ll be coming to eat there. I wouldn’t recommend this place to others if they wanted to try filipino food for the first time. Krystals, ihawan, renee’s and engeline’s is way better in food quality.