I have used in the past a system call to get the results from a w3m (or sourceforge to download) source dump.

my $file_to_read = "/home/trs80/tables.htm";
my $w3m = qx!/usr/local/bin/w3m -dump $file_to_read!;
print $w3m;
[download]

I know this is a far cry from a Perl only solution, but this method serves me well for my needs, and supports embedded tables to a point. You can even view the perlmonks with good format and layout :)