Pearl

Because we were with a vegan, so our eating options were limited.

Pearl was ok. I got the crab rangoon, which their sign outside claimed to be "THE BEST". It was fine. Certainly not the best ever, but not terrible.

The biggest issue was that they seem to not have a liquor license? They have a drink menu. But they order the alcohol from Legends across the hall and they deliver it and you pay them separately. To make it easy, we ordered a bottle of wine to share between the 4 of us. We ordered our wine at the same time we ordered our food. It arrived after we had all finished our meals. I understand that someone had to bring it over from the place across the hall (why couldn't the waitstaff from Pearl go get it? Seriously....there were only 2 tables seated in the whole place) but it was a Tuesday night. It was not busy. I can not fathom why it would take 40+ minutes to bring over a bottle of wine.

I recently paid my first visit to the Horseshoe Casino in Southern Indiana and likely my last visit for a while. I only went to see a comedy show and also because I was curious as to if this casino was about as average as I expected. As part of our trip, we figured we would have dinner at the casino, as it just made since with the timing of the show. Prior to our trip, I checked out the Horseshoe website to see the dining options. I definitely did not have high expectations for anything but figured, who knows, could be pleasantly surprised. We passed on the Paula Deen Buffet as we have definitely not heard much good about that place and a perusal of the food offerings didn't inspire much more confidence.

From the website, Pearl seemed somewhat fun and I may have been harkening back to a positive Asian food experience I had during my first night on a trip to Las Vegas. Unfortunately, this restaurant is quite frankly, pretty terrible. The decor is fine and it looks like it could be a decent restaurant, but once you crack open the menu, you get a sense of how uninspired this place is. The offerings could not be more safe for an Asian restaurant. The restaurant's website boasts that "Pearl offers authentic Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine in an elegant contemporary atmosphere. With a team of three Vietnamese and Chinese chefs, each with at least 20 years of experience, the guest can be assured that each dish is prepared with authentic traditional methods."

The food served at this place was definitely not authentic. Honestly, everything appeared to be prepackaged frozen dinners, just put on a plate instead of served in a microwaveable tray. I had pork fried rice and my wife had some chicken dish and neither was at all inspiring. Also, the service here was just weird. I felt really bad for our waiter who seemed incredibly nervous and was constantly apologizing to everyone. Granted, he was making a lot of mistakes, but he didn't need to make it so obvious. Clearly this guy just gets ran over on a nightly basis and bringing out the substandard food Pearl serves certainly doesn't give him anything to fall back on.

Eating here is the type of experience where the waiter asks "How is everything?" and there really isn't anything you can say. You can let them know that the food sucks, but there is nothing within that kitchen that is going to fix it. They can't go run out and buy fresher ingredients or dream up some inspired dish, it just isn't going to happen.

Reviewing this restaurant is almost an exercise in futility because I doubt anyone is going to the Horseshoe because they are excited to try this "authentic Vietnamese and Chinese" restaurant. If you do find your sad self stuck at the Horseshoe Casino for an extended period of time and are hungry, I would suggest avoiding Pearl. None of the other options seemed appealing, but I think you could do better with getting some safe choice such as a burger from Legends and washing it down with a few beers. Really, your best bet would be just to avoid the Horseshoe, but that is a topic for another discussion.