For Crystal and Sean Lee, the restaurant business is a family affair.
The Lees celebrated the first anniversary of Super Bowl Asian Cuisine & Tea House in Pearland in May, which they opened after owning a few successful restaurants in California and Taiwan.
The Lees moved to Pearland a year ago and quickly set to work opening their own restaurant. The couple moved from Los Angeles to Taiwan for a few years where they raised their children before moving back to California in 2016. But they soon moved to Pearland.
“We didn’t want to move back to Los Angeles—it was too expensive. I had a friend in Pearland who said, ‘Why don’t you visit and see the area?’ We fell in love it with it,” Crystal said.
Super Bowl Asian Cuisine & Tea House serves Chinese and Taiwanese food made daily with fresh ingredients. The husband-wife duo work as a team to run the restaurant; Crystal works the front of the house to serve customers while Sean uses his culinary prowess to serve authentic east Asian cuisine. The Lees make painstaking efforts to ensure their food is fresh and authentic, including their devil’s tonkotsu ramen.
“We only cook one pot a day, so if we run out, you have to come back tomorrow,” Crystal said.
While the Lees love being business owners, running an authentic Chinese restaurant in Texas has its challenges.
“In Taiwan, we had a lot more variety of ingredients—in Pearland, there is not as much,” Crystal said. “Usually you set the menu and then find the ingredients. Here, we had to find the ingredients before we set the menu.”
Despite the obstacles, the Lees go the extra mile to obtain the ingredients they need—even if it means driving to Kemah to pick up fresh shrimp. Crystal makes the drive every other week to serve curry coconut shrimp with rice, a customer favorite.
In addition to lunch and dinner options, Super Bowl serves milk teas, brewed teas, smoothies and Taiwanese shaved ice.
“I like to see the customers order the drinks and the satisfied looks on their faces when they taste them,” she said.
Super Bowl Asian Cuisine & Tea House
4310 Bailey Road, Ste. 106, Pearland
281-692-2688
Hours: Mon.-Thu. 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m., 4:30-8 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m., 4:30 -9 p.m., closed Sundays
