Cheap & Cheerful Taiwanese Hamburgers
This is no secret, but Lan Jia Gua Bao in Gongguan has the most amazing traditional Taiwanese hamburgers, known as gua bao. These “hamburgers” consist of braised, shredded pork belly in a fluffy bao, stuffed with a mixture of pickled cabbage, peanut powder and cilantro. It looks kind of like a Chinese pita bread, and it’s delicious. We were glad we made theย journey to Gongguan for these!
You can choose to take away or sit inside. On the days we have been, we were surprised to see that there is a longer wait for the take-out line than for sitting in the restaurant.
The gua bao are made outside, so the advantage of taking yours to go is that you can see them being prepared right in front of your eyes.
The inside is basic but clean, and people don’t tend to linger once they’ve had their food. As soon as you sit down, you will be presented with a menu.Lucky for us, they have one in English!
The menu is simple: they have a few soups, zongzi and of course, the ba guao. Instead of choosing flavours or fillings for the gua bao, you choose what kind of meat you want: fat meat, lean meat, half and half, partial lean, or partial fat. We tried partial fat and half and half. They were both great, but we thought the half and half had more flavour.
The pickled cabbage, peanut powder and cilantro complement the meat beautifully, giving the gua bao a slighty sweet taste. If you aren’t a fan of one of these ingredients, don’t be shy — ask the English-speaking staff to have yours without.
FYI, just across the street from this place is a super famous bubble milk place that you’ll see epic lines for. The queue moves pretty fast and the bubble milk is delicious and worth the hype. Lots of people wait to get theirs and then head on over here for a gua bao!
What’s the vibe?
Local, no-frills joint serving up some pork belly realness. You likely won’t have to wait very long even if there’s a queue, as they have a good system going.
Worth it?
Absolutely! It’s NT$60, delicious, and we didn’t have to wait long. What’s not to like?
Would you go back?
YES. Not just because it’s a Taipei must-do that we’ll take all our friends to, but because it hits the spot every time.
Visited June 2018
| Lan Jia Gua Bao |
| Chinese Name: ่ๅฎถๅฒๅ |
| Hours: 11am โ 12am |
| Phone: 02 2368 2060 |
| English Address: No. 3, Alley 8, Lane 316, Section 3, Luosifu Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, 100 |
| Chinese Address: 100ๅฐๅๅธไธญๆญฃๅ็พ ๆฏ็ฆ่ทฏไธๆฎต316ๅทท8ๅผ3่ |
nice website, thanks for sharing it.
Thank you!
where is the location? is there any menu?
Hi! The English & Chinese address are in the table at the bottom of the post, and you can also click the map link to directly take you to the location on Google Maps. The menu is only one page long, and there is a photo in the post. Thanks for your comment!