Wei Lu 圍爐酸菜白肉火鍋 – Amazing Hot Pot in Taipei

Wei Lu is a huo guo (hot pot) specialist restaurant in Da’an district in Taipei that is well known amongst locals. It’s located in one of the many alleys in Da’an. The restaurant looks is a bit old school and not fancy like many newer hot pot restaurants in Taipei. The atmosphere is pretty jovial as it’s is filled with families; I really liked the atmosphere because it reminded me of when I was young and would go out to dinner with my family. The staff was friendly, but quite busy as the restaurant was packed.

I would advise making a reservation; we waited 30 minutes and barely got a table as the restaurant closes at 9:30pm and we were the last group they served. I don’t think they speak English nor do I believe they have an English menu, but given the limited menu you should be able to get by pointing if you’re not with anyone who speaks Chinese.

Hot Pot (Huo Guo)

Most hot pot restaurants give you a choice of a variety of broths, meat, vegetables and other condiments. Wei Lu is different as there is only one type of hot pot they serve. The hot pot automatically comes out with suan cai (sour pickled cabbage) and pork in it already. The hot pot is the tall chimney hot pot that you see in Singapore and Malaysia, but is not normal in Taipei. The broth is imparted with the flavor from the suan cai and while it doesn’t look like much, it’s amazing with the pork and suan cai. You can order other stuff to put in the hot pot although the offerings are fairly limited compared to most places. I got shrimp balls, fried tofu skins and extra vegetables. I highly recommend the shrimp balls; they were homemade and excellent. Wei Lu does have the normal sauce station where you can make your own sauce. Also, they have fresh baked shao bing (sesame crusted buns) that are really good; crispy on the outside, but soft and puffy inside. They do have stir fried moo shu pork type filling for the shao bing, but because we sat so late they ran out of filling for them. While a simple meal, it was one of my favorite meals this trip to Taipei and the type of thing that I would definitely eat a few times a month if I lived in Taipei. 9/10