on the sideEgg roll
also: eggroll
Two for a dollar something, in the warmer by the register, and nobody explains why.
A cylindrical deep-fried roll in a thick wheat skin — shredded cabbage, chopped meat, sometimes shrimp — eaten with the fingers out of a cellophane packet of duck sauce. Despite the name it generally has no egg in it, though egg white sometimes seals the seam.
The story Cited · wp-egg-roll
The egg roll is American. It is distinct from mainland Chinese spring rolls and first appears in the United States in the early twentieth century. Andrew Coe, who wrote Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States, reckons the modern American egg roll was probably invented at a New York Chinese restaurant in the early 1930s by one of two chefs who each later claimed it: Lung Fong of Lung Fong's, or Henry Low of Port Arthur. Low's recipe, printed in the 1938 cookbook Cook at Home in Chinese, called for bamboo shoots, roast pork, shrimp, scallions, water chestnuts, salt, MSG, sugar, palm oil and pepper.
Why it is in a donut shop is a separate question with a plain answer: rent. Jolly Chan, who runs China Express and Donut in San Francisco, told KQED the combination "came out of necessity" — "we have to sell more stuff to make up the rent and the expense."
Today Cited · kqed-donuts-chinese
In Southern California a hot case beside the donuts holds egg rolls, and often chow mein and fried rice with them. The fryer was already on.
The particulars
| course | savory |
|---|---|
| region | Southern California, Chinese America, The United States |
| confidence | high · updated 2026-09-16 |
Who it runs with
Who talks about it
Where we got it
- Egg roll — Wikipedia · link
- Why Donuts + Chinese Food = A Very Californian Combination — Asal Ehsanipour, 2021 · link
Where it came from: Cited a source we name · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Tradition what the tradition says, hedged · Inference this project's reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.