The Quest for the Best Deep Fried Spring Rolls part 1

 The street of España corner Blumentrit is a thriving business for food carts. One food in particular, which is, the "lumpia" or the fried spring rolls, aroused my interest to make a review. There are at least three food carts that offers deep fried spring rolls around my neighborhood. I often pass by them every single day. I even bought countless numbers of this food as a snack since 2007. I'm the usual guy that don't care much of what's in the food as long as it fills my stomach. All of that changed  when I started this blog that I went so serious to study the anatomy of my meal.

One food cart along España Blvd. in particular caught my attention and decided to buy samples for my review. I was suppose to buy another spring roll (lumpia) from another food cart nearby for the sake of comparative review but the food cart is closed. So, I decided to make the fried spring roll review on installment basis and will wait for the competitors to open.

This fried spring roll that I bought along España is fairly cheap at P7.00 per piece. I bought three pieces to ensure that I get my review and observation right. The filling consist of: sprouted beans, carrots strips, cabbage and "ubod". Yep, you heard it right. This fried spring rolls (lumpia) has a strips of "ubod" instead of "sayote".Here's what my taste buds failed to do while tasting this snack- it failed to determine whether the vegetable filling is sauteed or steamed. The strong flavor of the bean sprout and oil on where it was fried overpowered the taste of the other vegetable ingredient. Seriously, its an oily snack. My lips is literally  lathered in oil every time I take a bite.

Now, don't be fooled by this three and a half inch spring rolls. It seems tough and full outside but it has some hollow space on the inside. As you can see the wrapper is rolled five times to create the effect of being full. (click on the picture on the left.)

I also noticed a fold on the wrapper before noticing the number of times the spring rolls was rolled.  (click on the picture below) Perhaps, they made use of big "lumpia wrapper" then it was folded further to make the  similar effect of making the spring rolls to appear full.

It wasn't really a great experience eating this one. The vendor/owner of this spring rolls despite having a simple business model to operate failed at good customer service. I'll check on the competitor soon to see if they offer better food and service.