Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

* Asian Pearl
2060 S. Hurstbourne Parkway
(502) 495-6868
Call me naive, but even in this era of marketing and hype, when I read or hear a commercial I expect it to be at least tenuously rooted in fact.

So when I saw Asian Pearl's advertisement in Louisville Magazine's new EATS Dining Guide boasting about its "Chinese Grand Buffet, The Largest Buffet Selection in Kentuckiana," I could hardly wait to go check it out.

Whadda disappointment! Let's be blunt: The little buffet at this two-store chain's Hurstbourne Lane property is the smallest I'm aware of. With fewer than a dozen lunch entrees, a pallid salad bar and a short stack of desserts, it lags far behind its major competitors, China Town Chinese and the concurrently reviewed New World Buffet in terms of its selection.

Nor, sadly, does Asian Pearl make up for its quantitive deficiency in the quality department: While its buffet dishes aren't repulsive, they rarely rise above mediocre. Egg-drop soup was salty and short on chicken flavor; hot-and-sour soup had been cooked into a stewlike, vinegary melange. Hot wings were greasy. Broccoli in a stir-fry chicken dish was funky, with an odd fishlike flavor that I hope was oyster sauce; orange-flavor beef contained no orange that we could detect and no spicy heat; its bright-purple, sickly sweet sauce appeared to be based on currant jelly.

We left feeling thoroughly disappointed and vaguely taken-advantage-of despite Asian Pearl's affordable prices: Lunch for two $12.90, and even at a serve-yourself buffet, attentive service that kept plates cleared away and water glasses filled merits a $2.10 tip. $

ANOTHER LOCATION: 701 E. Highway 131, Clarksville, Ind. 47129; (812) 283-6868.