Had these at a dinner party for the first time and they were awesome. The skin was super crunchy, blistered, and craggy. They’re basically chả giò wrapped in bánh hỏi (vermicelli sheets). Anywhere I can get this in LA? thanks.
Looks like some Mystery panko crusted egg roll wrapper wiki photo… but these are what you’re looking for:
Get them at top baguette in little Saigon at 50c a pop. Small single bites. Not sure of any spots in LA though.
Personally I prefer the pure rice paper wrappers of golden deli as the gold standard (pun intended)
Viet huong looks great. Has there been a cha gio showdown thread like banh mi, taco etc ?
In my experience making egg rolls, looks like viet huong uses rice paper that contains tapioca flour resulting in those bubbly blisters. Harder to fry and brown but do it right and Texture is crunchy with slight chew from the tapioca.
This golden deli’s. It’s only rice flour hence no blistery bubbles. Texture is crunchiness that is delicate and shatters, without the chew. Easier to fry and brown but harder to find pure rice flour only paper.
Both great. Wheat paper egg rolls…meh.
the lacy cha gio re is even harder to find… see dried banh hoi sheets but not in the size to roll up egg rolls. Plus in my experience eating them, they tend to be slightly greasier soaking up the oil.
The cha gio are fairly ubiquitous, but the Original Poster is looking for a specific variation, using vermicelli sheets as a wrapper rather than the more common rice paper.
I my experience, rice paper wrapped egg rolls are sorta common in cali— but else where you find the wheat wrappers, the easiest to deal with. Nguyen’s areticle discussed the troubles with rice paper and tricks on how to deal with them.