Carrying on a Chinatown Tradition, One Dish at a Time
After major renovation, China Pearl adapts to changing tastes of neighborhood
Walking into China Pearl in Boston’s Chinatown, it’s hard to imagine the restaurant just went through a five-year “surgery.” The original wood floors, the exposed brick walls, a gilded gong rescued from what was practically a junk pile in the garage — every corner of this restaurant seems to tell a story of how Chinatown has endured through changing times.
Manager Patty Moy laid out these stories one by one for this reporter.
HIDDEN GEM: Inside the recently renovated China Pearl. Photos by Adam Smith.
Tearing It All Down to Find the Answer
China Pearl has operated out of this same building at 9 Tyler St. since 1960. It’s been through several renovations since then. The most recent and largest one began just a week before Covid-19 hit.
“We tore everything down — full demolition,” Moy recalled. “That was supposed to be the big project of renewing everything... and then, one week later, Covid shut everybody down.”
What was meant to be a straightforward renovation ended up taking five years. The restaurant reopened last January. “So what you’re seeing now is actually really new,” Moy said.
The original design plan, in fact, looked nothing like what exists today. The designer had first proposed something more conventional — molding along the walls and wallpaper with an “Asian design.” But as the plan grew more complicated, the team started to worry it might end up feeling flat.
“There were too many ideas, we weren’t sure,” Moy said. “We were also afraid it would look very boring.” After realizing the build-out had become overly complicated, the team scrapped it. “Finally we said, OK, let’s go really simple, clean our minds, clean the slate,” she said. “We’re thinking this building has a history in the neighborhood — instead of covering up the wooden floors, let’s keep it. I can’t get wood like this anymore.”
Digging further, the team literally pulled up the kitchen floor and found it lined with giant round tree trunks nobody had seen before. “We started talking with the contractors — how did they even get it up here?” Moy said. “Back then, a hundred years ago, they didn’t have the machinery we have now to get that under the flooring!”
Generations of families have held weddings here, celebrated baby banquets, and marked 80th and 90th birthdays. “I found out that grandparents celebrating their 80th and 90th birthdays here were also married here,” Moy said. Descendants of the building’s original owners still stop by from time to time for family reunions — “just to walk through and remember what the old China Pearl looked like back in their day,” she said.
From Pu Pu Platters to Xiao Long Bao
Asked how she’d describe China Pearl’s identity today — traditional Cantonese dim sum, or American Chinese food — Moy shared a story a regular customer once told her. He’d had lunch with a friend visiting from Shanghai and mentioned that he liked coming to China Pearl. His friend said, “Oh, that’s junk food.”
“I’m not offended,” Moy said. “I’m glad he shared that story with me — I can see where she’s coming from. China Pearl was always American Chinese food, tiki-style, like back in the 1960s.”
That’s why, to this day, many older customers still order the Pu Pu Platters and the sweet and sour pork she calls “Gu Lao Rou” — made with pork belly — along with fried rice. Not long ago, the restaurant catered a remembrance dinner for the late community figure Reggie Wong (of Reggie Wong Park), with a menu Moy described as “all Jok Sing food” — meaning distinctly Chinese American cooking, not the “authentic” mainland style.
On the other hand, in recent years, dishes like Sheng Jian Bao (pan-fried pork buns) , Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings), Jiaozi (traditional Chinese dumplings), and noodles — more northern in flavor — have become more popular. Moy smiled and told this reporter that now the clientele who “want to come in and have those, too” often “bring their friends from college or from the workplace (to show them) a whole array of different cuisine that you love and grew up with.” She also emphasized that dishes outside the menu can always be arranged: “We can always make... something that’s not on the menu, just tell me what you want,” she said, adding, “for events, we get creative. Things are not on the menu, we get creative.”
Traditional banquet dishes are also still served. “There’s symbolism in those,” Moy said, “and our chefs are able to make those as well.”
A Vanishing Craft: Dim Sum Talent
Discussing the preparation of dim sum, Moy’s tone turned serious.
“The Dim Sum definitely, they’re still keeping it very old-school. No machinery,” she said. "They still make it by hand — everything from the filling to the wrappers, the bao wrappers, different versions, rice wrappers, they make them all themselves.” The problem, she said, is that “the same people that are still making the Dim Sum 30 years ago, 40 years ago, a lot of them are retired... and the new generation aren’t learning it. That trade is getting more and more rare, I would say,” she added. “We’re very lucky to still have Dim Sum and have the chefs that are able to make that.”
Another important dish is zongzi (Chinese sticky rice dumpling): “All different parts of China have their own zongzi,” she said. “There’s Shanghainese style, Taiwanese style, Cantonese style.” She recalled a trip to Hangzhou: “Hangzhou has their own style of zongzi, which is different from Cantonese, too. Different shapes, different flavors, different fillings.” But fewer people know how to make it these days. “I think back in our generation, our grandmothers or grandparents would make it, then our aunties. But now our aunties are getting older, and no one else makes it. Now it’s us. I don’t know how to make it!” she laughed. “We should [learn],” she said. “It’s a nice connection time, too. You get to talk with your grandmother and really ask her. She would love to show you everything that she knows.”
From Corner Store to Chinatown Pearl
The China Pearl story actually begins with Moy’s father’s generation. The family’s first business was a convenience store on Harrison Avenue, at the corner across from Tai Tung Village, selling “candy, magazines, lottery tickets, ice cream.”
“A lot of the kids that are now in their 50s used to come through that store,” Moy said. She remembers her parents telling her which kids from the neighborhood grew up to become Boston police officers, and which ones “were the rascals” versus “the honest kids that come through to get their little candies.”
The family later ran a driving school and a travel agency — her father organized tour bus trips to Toronto and Niagara Falls, trips that families in their 40s, 50s, 60s still bring up decades later, she said. “We all remember going to Canada,” Moy said, recalling a recent catch-up with family friends now scattered as far as Denver and Germany.
The family’s real entry into the restaurant business came with Ho Yuen Ting, a busy restaurant on Hudson Street that Patty’s father bought first — “they were super busy, excellent food,” she said. China Pearl came next. The restaurant’s founders, “Uncle Bill Chin and Uncle Frank Chin,” had known her father since he was a teenager, when he worked for them as a waiter and busboy. Eventually, “they basically gave him the offer: ‘Do you want to take over China Pearl?’”
After the Pandemic
Asked about the biggest challenge since reopening, Moy didn’t hesitate: “There’s a lot of challenges!”
The pandemic, she said, reshaped how people think about work. “People don’t want to work that much anymore... we all want a personal life.” Many longtime staff took other jobs during Covid — some became Uber drivers, others moved into hotel work — and when it came time to reopen, “we started giving them phone calls, ‘Can you come back?’” Only about half returned, she said, “but only for part-time.”
“I tell them if we can take it one day at a time, if you can just work one day with me — one day makes a difference!” Moy said. “The whole thing that we all really care about is you have to be happy coming in. If you’re not happy, it’s not worth it.”
Online reviews have also reshaped the business. “Ratings are very important,” she said. “Everybody who eats here will rate you — Google Business, Yelp, everything.” Booking platforms have become an unavoidable cost too: “OpenTable, SevenRooms... These are all booking applications, and I didn’t realize how much there were. They’re expensive. But we rely on those nowadays.”
Social media is harder to keep up with, too. “We have a social media presence on TikTok, Facebook, things like that,” she said, “but it’s kind of hard to really keep active on it because we have so much going on internally.”
Her brother Brian, who runs Shojo downstairs, tried expanding into other locations before the pandemic — including a Shojo in Cambridge and a venture with partners in Hingham — but those additional projects have since closed. “We decided, after talking through it, it’s not worth it,” Moy said. “Let’s focus just back on one location and just do a really good job.” Part of the reason, she said, is simply a shortage of people: “There’s only one Brian, there’s only one Patty, that’s it. Even really good employees, there’s only one of them. I wish I could clone them, but it’s very hard.”
Who’s Walking in China Pearl?
Today’s China Pearl draws a far more varied crowd than in the past — including school groups bringing in elementary and even kindergarten-age children from the Josiah Quincy School.
“Food is what we remember as children,” Moy said. “It’s not really about the food, but the memories that you have with your family... Those are the memories that shape a person.”
Corporate groups have also become a bigger part of the business, which Moy said was the whole reason behind the renovation: “People can bring their friends and family here and enjoy the space... once I see someone lingering for a long time or keeping a table for a long time, it makes me happy. That’s the whole purpose of it.”
Nearby hotels regularly send tourists their way for dim sum, and the neighborhood’s landmark bakery, Ho Yuen Bakery — which Patty says has been around “even back in the 1960s” — often comes up in the same breath. There’s also a lesser-known bit of history: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu held her wedding at China Pearl. “She had just graduated from Harvard,” Moy said, “and she was definitely getting involved with the community. The community loved her, supported her, and she got married here.” Wu still returns during her campaigns, Moy added: “We support her as well.”
Chinatown Has Changed
Reflecting on how the neighborhood has changed, Moy pointed most to a loss of familiarity. “I definitely don’t recognize a lot of the new store owners,” she said. “A lot of them coming in are franchises. They’re no longer the mom-and-pop stores.” Growing up, she said, “we knew everybody who owned every single storefront... they’re like family, they’re like uncles.”
The languages spoken have shifted too. “We used to be all Cantonese speakers here,” she said. “Now, with the change, you see a lot more Mandarin speakers... it’s not the old-school Toishanese anymore either.” She’s also noticed more Fujianese immigrants moving into the neighborhood.
The push behind the renovation traces back in part to community organizer Mary Chen, who led the Clean Up Chinatown project. “I met Mary Chen before this renovation project, right when I got back into the restaurant business,” Moy said. “I love her — she talks the talk, but she tells you the truth.” It was Chen, Moy said, who first planted the idea: “‘Patty, you should focus on... bring in a nice space, clean up Chinatown, beautify Chinatown’” — a place people would be proud to bring visitors to, “nice, clean, organized,” where guests could “understand and appreciate” Chinese culture.
Unpredictable Future
China Pearl’s building is owned outright by the family’s company. “We’re able to purchase it and have a mortgage on the building,” Moy said. “So we don’t have a landlord here in Boston. The landlord is our own company.” That doesn’t mean it’s easy, she added: “It’s not that the price is going up, it’s because the restaurant business is something different, and people’s taste changes... Maybe one day no one wants to come here anymore, then what do you do? It’s kind of out of our control at that point. So that’s the scary part.”
Business has slowed compared to the past. “I would say I see less people than before,” Moy said. “Before, you would get these crazy lines out the door.” Part of that, she explained, comes down to competition: “We have a lot of cities — Quincy, Malden, Medford, Cambridge — there’s a lot of competition... new stores that open there that can offer what we offer here." Chinatown’s tourist traffic has helped offset that. “Luckily, being in Chinatown Boston, we get tourists,” she said. “We have high-rises, we have renters... so it’s our job to make it a nice place for them to want to come to Chinatown, too.”
A Hope for Chinatown’s Future
Looking ahead, Moy’s tone brightened. She pointed to the boom in boba shops like Molly Tea — “so trendy,” she said, noting customers collect the little trinkets that come with their drinks. “I do see it getting trendier and trendier,” she said of Chinatown overall. “The franchises coming in... I think that’s a good change. It modernizes things, it gives people more variety. But — too many boba shops. Too many!” she laughed.
She’d also like to see more focus on healthy, allergy-conscious options. “Every single customer that comes in has some kind of a gluten-free request, nut-free, vegan, vegetarian, shellfish-free — you name it,” she said. “That’s our clientele now, and we have to be able to accommodate that... it’d be great to see this becoming something that we’re normalizing.”
And she imagines a Chinatown with more gift shops. “After you get your meal, you get a dessert, Molly Tea... after that, you go to a gift shop and get little trinkets, little memory things. We don’t have that now. Not yet,” she said, pointing to Mike’s Pastry in the North End as a model. “There’s so many little things that you collect on the way... next stop, something different; next stop, something different. That’d be really nice.”
Dim Sum Soundtrack
Near the end of the interview, this reporter mentioned how much she liked the restaurant’s background music — it felt, she said, unexpectedly familiar. It turns out the playlist was Brian’s idea. “We subscribe to Spotify for music,” Moy said, “and on there, there are playlists... we really like the style, and the way it changes, and it reflects the Chinese artists.” Guests consistently respond to it, she said: “Everybody comes through, loves the music. They all love it.” Finding the right fit matters, she added — “what works here may not work for another party” — but for China Pearl, the music carries a bit more meaning. “I think again, it’s the introduction to Chinese culture,” she said. “These are Chinese artists. They’re actually quite good!” “We want to bring that to life,” she said.
From a corner store to a dim sum institution, from Toishanese to Mandarin, from tiki-style pu pu platters to hand-wrapped xiaolongbao — the six-decade story of China Pearl carries the migration and perseverance of generations in Boston’s Chinatown. As Moy put it: “I hope it can stay here and continue to thrive.”
This story was funded in part by Boston 250, a public-private partnership between the City of Boston and private sector partners, including Meet Boston, State Street, The Boston Foundation, John Hancock, Eastern Bank, Liberty Mutual, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and PNC Bank. Learn more at boston250.org
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