ottawa foodies

May the best roll win! (ps: it's Ruby Inn)

www.eventbrite.com

Funnily enough, I won't be attending as I already have plans to take possession of a dozen Ruby Inn egg rolls Saturday at 7pm. No joke.

Looks like FF's already signed up, it's a bit suspect that he hasn't posted about it yet; hope it's not because he's in Big GP's pocket.

I figured too much publicity might cause the egg roll vendors to skew quality unnaturally in their favour. But since Chris was on CBC All in a Day this afternoon any discretion has been blown wide open anyway. :-)

I'm considering smuggling in a sample from Welcome Back to increase my comparison base.

Good luck, and full tasting notes will be expected after the event. This could rival GMP for controversy if the wrong place wins ...

What would they do to skew quality, I wonder?* I would hope that whoever's placing the order isn't going to say 'Hello, I am picking up egg rolls for a BEST EGG ROLL COMPETITION, please make them as you usually do.' :)

*I mean, besides just buying Rubys and passing them off as their own, duh

Ruby Inn?
really I no clue they were considered one of the best egg rolls.
-they are good, but for myself I prefer chicken or just vegetable egg rolls.

But I will add the Ruby Inn egg rolls are good and have a lot of meat. If you like pork they you would like these. I do not really eat pork other than bacon.
But I do get through 3/4 of a Ruby egg roll before getting tired of eating meat.

It's probably been 10 years since I've had an egg roll. I guess I only go to places that serve spring rolls now. I found this to be the case once I stopped going to places that served 'Canadian' Chinese food.

I don't order egg rolls or even spring rolls in Chinese or Canadian Chinese restaurants. The only fried rolls I find worthwhile are the delicious Vietnamese ones (cha gio) and the Thai shrimp ones (por pia goong).

That said, I'm more than happy to pit several egg rolls against each other at a tasting event! I'll report back for sure. :-)

Super-sad they didn't expand the brackets to accommodate 8 competitors; that way Welcome Back could steamroll them all.

Looks like a few gauntlets are being dropped on Welcome Back's behalf, I'll have to try them sometime.

Does anyone know if the testing is blind or double blind ?

What an upset!! Public favourite Golden Palace was downgraded by the ~20 people involved in this tasting event. The plum sauce really hurt GP's results -- apparently, their egg rolls are quite good with hot mustard.

Tastings were blind -- we didn't know which egg roll came from where until after the results had been tallied.

Results, in order from top to bottom in the pic:

Wong's Palace

Average score: 15.1/20
My score: 19/20 (Filling: 5, Shell: 4, Sauce: 5, Overall: 5)

Golden Palace

Average score: 12.4/20
My score: 11/20 (Filling: 3, Shell: 4, Sauce: 1, Overall: 3)

Dragon Fortune Delight

Average score: 15.2/20
My score: 15/20 (Filling: 3, Shell: 5, Sauce: 4, Overall: 3)

Ruby Inn

Average score: 15.1/20
My score: 16/20 (Filling: 4, Shell: 4, Sauce: 4, Overall: 4)

--

You can see that the popular votes for the top three were pretty much tied! 15.1 and 15.2 are statistically identical here. I thought the Wong's Palace was the clear winner, especially for the flavour of the filling.

See the tweets from the event here: twitter.com

Next, I will have to do a side-by-side comparison of Welcome Back vs Wong's Palace.

:-)

Are they all 'open end' style egg rolls ?

Is the open end style regional ? I haven't seen them till I moved to Ottawa.

BTW. Kinda glad to see the over-hyped Golden Palace (GP) egg rolls knocked off their perch.

Open ended must be an Ottawa thing. Me too, I have never encountered open ended ones in the Montreal region. I can also attest that most Gatineau Chinese restaurants have closed ended egg rolls.

Having tried both, I can't say I noticed a huge difference in taste due to open vs closed ends.

Now, I have to go try the Ruby egg rolls. While egg rolls are not an authentic Chinese food, it is a guilty pleasure of mine!

I can confirm I have not seen open ended eggrolls in western canada or Kingston. It does seem to be fairly localized. The one time I had GP the filling seemed very meat heavy (also an anomoly for me). Is that the same for the challengers above?

I've heard the open-end thing is something Ottawa is specially known for. I have family in Toronto (who grew up in Ottawa) who say the thing they miss if they ever get egg rolls in Toronto is the open-ended style. They don't have that there. I think that's why egg rolls are such a big hit here.

I gotta tell ya, this discussions made me crave some egg rolls. I tried a few and here is how they broke down:

Ruby's was my least favourite as we found them a bit tasteless.

Welcome Back's had the best crunch but they were a bit too salty and cabbagey

Golden Palace were introduced to me by my girlfriend many years ago. I though that these porky, delicious egg rolls ( with the hot mustard and plum sauce) were the best I had tried.

Until....

Wong's Palace egg rolls had the best flavour overall. Porky goodness with great burnt ends..

I really should try Dragon's Fortune but it's a bit of a hike for me and I am kind of egg rolled out.

Golden Palace's plum sauce is really terrible stuff.

Do any of the good places offer a price break when buying a dozen ?

That used to be common practice.

Any good ones to try in the east end? In a week or two ;-)

I don't know about the others, Caper, but Ruby has charged the 10-singles price for a dozen as far back as I can remember.

Finally got around to comparing egg rolls from Welcome Back to Wong's Palace. Here's the run-down:

Welcome Back
* Roughly 50/50 mix of pork and cabbage. Well seasoned.
* Nice crunchy shell.
* Sweet and jam-like sauce.

Wong's Palace
* Filling is almost all porky deliciousness. Slightly thinner diameter as a result.
* More delicate shell.
* Delicious Thai-chili style sauce.

I still give Wong's Palace the crown as best egg roll (and sauce) in town. My wife preferred the increased veggie matter of the Welcome Back product.

Captain Caper, there's a volume discount at Welcome Back.

It turns out my kids didn't like egg rolls and 3 were enough for my wife, so I ended up eating 19 of them in a span of 18 hours. That's roughly 5000 calories and 10g of pure sodium. It's been almost 24 hours since I had the last one, during which I've ingested little other than water and some homemade vegetable soup.

I may never eat another egg roll again. But when I do, it will be from Wong's Palace. :D

I did actually did try Welcome Back egg rolls recently. (forgot to review here).

I tried them because 1) I was way out in 'burbs i.e. Bells Corners 2) There was someone in here harping-on about the Welcome Back egg rolls.

The other egg rolls I tried recently were from Ruby Inn.

I like Welcome Back better than Ruby Inn because of the coarser chopped cabbage that wasn't cooked to mush. So, even though smaller and less meatier, the Welcome Back egg rolls had a nicer texture, by far. Taste and sauce were somewhat close.

Now I'm off to Wong's Palace to try theirs, because that same person is now harping on about Wong's Palace egg rolls.

Way to take one for the team FF. That is dedication to the foodie cause.

I have only tried Ruby Inn as it is right beside my house (well 2 bus stops away).
They do have a discount if you buy a dozen and often when I pick up a combination plate there I see people picking up a bag with just a dozen egg rolls!

Ruby Inn one egg roll is $1.60 or a dozen $16.00
-have their delivery menu here!

-Sometimes Ruby Inn throws in some free fortune cookies too.

I actually prefer spring rolls w vegetables only in them and not meat.

Golden Baguette makes their own Vietnamese rolls- I forget the actual name, but usually they are very small and have pork and noodles in them?

The Golden Baguette version is bigger than a reg egg roll, vegetarian, lots of noodles,huge and only $1.50 around.
I did not know they were so big and the first time ordering them asked for 4 and was surprised how heavy my box was. Ended up freezing two of them for later..
If you want to try the Golden Baguette spring rolls, it is prob better to call before going to see if they have any or if the person who makes them is there, sometimes they leave early or stop making hot food after a certain time somedays.
Golden Baguette is also only open Mon-Sat until around 6pm and cash only.
(located at 242 bank, near lisgar, tel: (613)235-3838 ).
-I had their take-out menu handy here...

*You can always freeze the egg rolls for later if you have too many!
Just reheat them in the oven or if in a rush microwave in paper for 30 seconds and finish off in the oven and they will be crispy.
I'm only one person and not a huge appetite so always seem to throw some stuff in the freezer for later...

I wouldn't consider my appreciation of Welcome Back egg rolls "harping"; I'd say it's a love affair that's been cultivated over the last thirty years.

Just had a pulled pork eggroll from wildfire BBQ in Perth. Gonna be hard to go back to regular eggrolls after having one of these.