Saturday, July 12, 2008

King Eggroll Restaurant, San Jose

King Eggroll

King Eggroll is one of those local legends that I never really quite got a proper chance to eat before, as it was usually out of a big party platter that had been sitting around for a while rather than coming down to the store itself (980 Lundy Ave, 408-729-8307). As such, I still wasn't quite sure what it was about this little hole in the wall's egg rolls that had attracted such a cult following. After having eaten them from the store today, I think I now know.

It may have looked like any other egg roll, but this thing surprised me with its paper thin and crunchy wrapper, inside of which contained a light meat and vegetable filling that was hot enough to scorch the roof of my mouth. Similarly, some deep fried wonton things on the side looked like the usually half-cold-and-too-thick variety but turned out to be airy and crisp instead, all the while hiding a fresh shrimp and meat filling that was a pleasure to eat. There wasn't even any point in using that red sweet-and-sour sauce on the side.

Now, these guys had quite a bit of other stuff sitting in a bunch of Panda Express-like troughs that I didn't care to explore. But there were a number of Saran-wrapped Vietnamese items like fresh spring rolls sitting on the counter for sale too. If this shop is run by Vietnamese owners, then that makes a lot of sense. Either way, it was much better than I expected, and beat the pants off Singapore's Old Chang Kee.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting. What you call egg rolls we call spring rolls. Won tons are won tons though.

I adore Vietnamese Summer rolls. Guilt free tasty numbers they are!

Unknown said...

King Egg Roll is the bomb! They are a Viet owned business w/ roots in that community. (A literal rags to riches story.) Around Silicon Valley, it's hard not to know these kings of the party tray.