Gum Kuo Restaurant

Surprised by extensive menu, not just the traditional BBQ roast items. Complementary tea, takes credit card, open later than other Oakland Chinatown restaurants, fast service, good for breakfasts start 8am, lunch special and dinner combination (3 entree special price, including soup, good for family)

This place may not be the cleanest buuuut you're coming here for the food! Bwahaha. So don't come here if you get grossed out with things like that. 😬 I came here to "snack" on some rice rolls cause I love them! - Duck: Needs more duck! There were also chopped bones thrown in. Boo. But so good! - Shrimp: Needs more shrimp! There were only 4. :( - Dried Shrimp: Yum. - BBQ Pork and Cilantro: My favorite! - Chili Oil: it's not spicy but more so for flavor I guess. Stir it well or you'll scoop up the salt and it'll make your food super salty. I'll keep coming back when I'm in the area and may even try the egg noodles next time, even after seeing a large pile of noodles just chillin' on a table waiting to be put away haha.

They have a pretty good selection of entrees to choose from. The proteins on display are always ready to be put over rice and served to you. Many of the entrees also come with vegetables on the side as well. Beef chow fun was tasty, but could have used a tad more soy sauce. Maybe a bit more meat as well. I'd come here again. The service was a little better than average. The space was small enough that if you raised your hand or tried to get the staff's attention, someone would see you. The line can be a bit long, but it moves along. Though the lunch hour is understandably longer.

Awful attitude. Even we were warned before about their rudeness, we were still shocked by their level of unprofessional service here. 1)No one in the front desk, so we were left there for 10mins, 2)then when I asked if we can dine in, they were unhappy because we had a service animal. 3)And what’s worse, they did not inform us that we need to wait for a table, we were left there standing again and I had to explicitly asked a waitress and she responded: isn’t it obvious that you have to wait? Well it’s more obvious that we are not paying for this kind of ‘service’, so goodbye and never see you again.

Great choice for roast/broiled/steamed deli specialties and an extensive cafe menu that's available in Chinese and English. Standouts are roast pork, roast duck, soy chicken, and offal mix (ngow jaap). Steamed rice rolls are made fresh and to order as well, highly suggested if you've never had it SUPER fresh! Staff communicates well and handles crowds with ease. Our go-to whenin the area, and definitely recommend coming in for takeout (or dine in when safe). Parking in the area can be a challenge, but the Pacific Renaissance Plaza underground lot is fast and convenient.

There's really no arguing the bay area is THE place to get the best Chinese food around in the US. However, as I've grown up, SF Chinatown has become too expensive and touristy to go for food whenever I'm around, so I opted to come here in Oakland's Chinatown to take some friends (with very low exposure levels to Chinese food) for some good, old-fashioned Cantonese grub. This place was legit. The service was merely adequate. There wasn't even a bathroom to be dirty. But the food was cheap(for the bay), had relatively large portions, but most importantly, tasted absolutely fantastic. It's unpretentious and unassuming, just as it should be. From what we had, I'd highly recommend getting a half duck and the beef chow fun. Everything else was still very, very good, but those were definitely the standouts amongst all the other places I've been to in the bay.