The Concierge from our hotel made us a dinner reservation at The Oriental Pearl Restaurant and assured us it was where they send all their guests. I explained to the Concierge that our child has allergies and he said that this restaurant was extremely accommodating. We arrived five minutes early, were seated and immediately explained to the waiter (who understood English) about our daughter's eating allergies. (We also presented a card in Chinese if there was a language problem) He assured us that it was not a problem and told us what could be eaten. We ordered appetizers, the waiter then came back and told us that he made a mistake and our daughter could not have the soup or chicken dish. We reordered and he then came back and said our daughter could only eat the rice and vegetables as they marinate ALL of their fish, chicken, meat......in advance in a sauce that she cannot eat. After 30 minutes we left the restaurant with our child in tears. We have never been treated like this in any other restaurant before. If in fact the restaurant could not accommodate us they should have told us that when we first entered the facility and we would have left and been grateful that they told us they could not accommodate us. However for this "game" to go on for 30 minutes was absurd. I find it difficult to believe that every single piece of protein in the entire restaurant was pre-marinated. Any restaurant that "pre-marinates" all of their protein in the same marinade is certainly not top notch and not a caliber that should be referred to others.
I do need to mention however that prior to this debacle, we ate at two different Chinese restaurants that we walked into off the street in China Town and they were very gracious. They not only were able to but they prepared anything our daughter wanted with ingredients that she was able to eat and enjoy.
