Taiwan Ganbei, Haymarket Chinatown

Deep fry it and they will come. The deep golden hue and promise of crunch lures almost everyone in. It's how I managed to convince most of my dining companions to try this dish, slices of pork stuffed with baby leeks and coated in a salt and pepper crumb. Slices of pork intestine, that is, at Taiwan Ganbei in Sydney's Chinatown.



Taiwan Ganbei is slick and modern if a little sterile with its black tiles and tables and perimeter mirrors. The surprisingly extensive menu yields more than 100 dishes covering a full range of Taiwanese homestyle cooking. Prices are budget friendly too, starting at $4.50 for eggplant with garlic sauce and maxing out at $18.80 for stir fried pipis with basil.



Menu photos give some clues on what to expect, but the speed at which our waitress came to take our order indicates that most patrons are Taiwanese regulars who immediately know what they want to order.


Taiwanese stewed pork mince rice $5.50 small

The Taiwanese classic, stewed pork mince rice, seems like an obvious place to start. Lu rou fan is a hugely popular comfort food, a simple but satisfying dish of pork mince cooked in soy and rice wine served over rice. This version isn't as saucy as we expect, but there's an intense umami flavour to the dish.


Three cup chicken $12.80

Three cup chicken is another Taiwanese staple, even though the dish originated in Jiangxi in southern China. The name is said signify the recipe, one that calls for a cup each of soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil.

There's a gentler flavour to this dish than, say, honey soy chicken. The small pieces on the bone can be a little too fiddly for the impatient, even if the reward is juicier flesh.


Three cup chicken combo $15.50
with stewed pork mince rice and a drink

You can order the three cup chicken as part of a combo meal too, adding on the stewed pork mince rice and a drink for $2.70. Drinks include a whole rainbow of flavours including kumquat honey, passionfruit yakult, papaya and black sesame.


Taiwan deep fried basil chicken $8.50

But where's all the fried? Oh hello deep fried basil chicken. Taiwanese fried chicken recipes tend to use sweet potato starch, creating a sandy crumb that gives it a more textural crunch. You score a bounty of fried chicken here for only $8.50 although it starts to feel a little oily and salty a third of the way through. The Taiwanese love of deep fried basil leaves sits well with me though - those crisp leaves are super addictive.


Salt and pepper crispy pork intestine $12.80

The crispy pork intestines are an impressive feat too, packed with baby leeks, deep fried and then sliced on the diagonal and draped with shallot curls. The intestines have been cleaned well, and the leek adds a freshness to a notoriously "fragrant" offal.

There's a great crunch of batter with a distinctive slightly tacky chew from the intestine itself. You should probably share this dish between at least two or three people due to its richness.


Deep fried pork rice cake $8.80

I'm all over the deep fried pork rice cake too. You need to read between the lines to realise these are actually cubes of pork blood mixed with glutinous rice. Dredged with sweet potato starch, they don't look quite so ominous on the plate.

You can't really taste the pigs blood. It's more about the sticky rice, fortified with iron, and then floured and plunged into a vat of oil. There's a generous amount of salt on these that would make them perfect with a beer. If you really want to go wild, the restaurant has just started served Taiwanese fruit beers including mango, pineapple and grape. Ganbei!






Taiwan Ganbei
52 Dixon Street, Haymarket, Chinatown, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9212 2220

Opening hours:
Sunday to Thursday 11.30am-10pm
Friday and Saturday 11.30am-12 midnight


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