Gomu Review

Today, we’ve decided to do a little shopping in Paris, more precisely in Chatelet-les-Halles. I haven’t seen this place since it was renovated.

Walking around in the street, we decided to have a snack, but it ended up being dinner at this place named Gomu, which looked quite interesting and was proposing a bao burger.

The location

For a restaurant, it’s hard to beat this type of location. The restaurant is on a pedestrian street parallel to the famous mall Les Halles in Chatelet. This is perhaps the most busy and eclectic area in all of Paris.

It’s been a while; I haven’t gone there, and it’s really a melting pot of all the cultures present in France. This particular restaurant has a Japanese and American vibe but seems to be run by French with African descendants; you won’t see this anywhere else.

What really makes this restaurant pop out is the two-tone lighting, which is basically pink and teal. This is very reminiscent of the color of neon, but with a modern touch.

The work on the light in this restaurant is very nice; it really gives this modern Tokyo vibe to the place. The kitchen is open, and there are four ordering kiosks, which really make me feel like this place could be an arcade in Japan.

This place is definitely a fusion of at least two cultures, if not more. I like the fact that there is more than one area with screens to order.

Whenever this place is jam packed, there’s at least enough space for people to queue up inside the restaurant, which is neither the smallest nor the biggest.

Most of the seats and tables are located on the veranda. I think there must be perhaps 30 to 50 places in this particular location, and I think there are already 20 locations and 30 more to come.

The menu

The menu in Gomu is quite simple, which is a good thing. I love the place that knows exactly what they are about and doesn’t need to try to have a bunch of average food on the menu.

Here, it’s all about bao burgers, also called bao-gers, and accompaniments. You can get some snacks that are very delicious according to the reviews, some desserts like cheese cakes or mochi, and some drinks such as bubble tea or cocktails.

The Bao-gers have different options, just like in any fast food restaurant. You can get a classic beef or chicken baoger or try something slightly different.

Like in Five Guys, you can customize your ingredients, although we wanted to try something simple to start.

To accompany your baoger, you can get some regular potato fries or sweet potato ones. Thinking about it, this restaurant is a better option than most since you can avoid gluten and potatoes.

Our experience

Our son was the first to try this passion fruit bubble tea, and I have to say, as a treat, this is quite pleasant. It’s nothing like the real bubble tea you would get from a place like BoBoQ; this is more like the fast food version of it, but still pleasant.

The drink is very sweet with a little acidity, a little bit like what you would find in Pago bottles. There is a very thick sirop in the bottom, so you have to stir, which is quite long if you don’t want to drink pure sugar.

There are also these small bubbles that melt in the mouth and are filled with this strong and sweet passion fruit sirop. It was the first time I’d tried this kind of bubble tea, and I really enjoyed it.

After our bag arrived and looked very tasty, we tried the sweet potato fries, and they were absolutely delicious. They came with two sauces: mayonnaise and ketchup.

They didn’t put any salt on them, I believe, but with the sauce, they were perfect. They are by far the best fried sweet potatoes I’ve tried, and they were steaming inside.

The baoger was well presented. I was a bit surprised to see that there wasn’t any cheese inside it. The steak looked like a smash burger. Unfortunately, the steak wasn’t the best when it came to seasoning and taste.

I think there wasn’t enough fat inside this meat, which some people may prefer, but I feel like the burger from Factory & Co. tasted better.

Overall, it was a good burger, and the sauce inside was very good. The bun, or bao, I should say, was interesting. It didn’t particularly feel like a real bao but more like a mixture of a regular bun with the taste of a bao. It’s almost like those frozen industrial breads but made out of rice instead of wheat.

It was still a pleasant experience trying this bun, but perhaps we didn’t put all the options that gave the most umph to this type of bun.

Verdict

7.9 out of 10.

Gomu is definitely a place I would try again. I think they combine all the things I love about Asia and the US.

A place where you can get a burger or baoger, I should say, with bubble tea instead of having to go to two different places.

The sweet potato fries were the real star of the show for us, and the passion fruit bubble tea was a good experience as well, although we believe you can probably find them somewhere else.

Are we convinced by the bun made of bao? We think that eating a burger with a bao is more like a hype than a real culinary experience, but if, like me, you are slightly gluten-intolerant, this joint is a great option.