Egg Roll King

5035 W Washington St
Indianapolis, IN 46241

There are three listings for Egg Roll King in Indianapolis, two on the south side and this one close to the airport. Whether they are associated I do not know. The citysearch and insiderpages reviews on the other two include “To say this place is the best chinese food in America is an understatement” and “I am telling you this is the best food I ever have. tries it out […]” Based on those superlatives, I’m guessing the place I ate is not the same Egg Roll King of south side fame. My pineapple chicken was coated with that translucent goo that must come out of a number 10 can somewhere in the back. The egg roll was over-fried. The hot and sour soup was good, though.

I imagine that the place used to be a Burger Chef or something, one with an excited franchisee who built an entire outside dining area out of the leftover masonry.

Now it is a Chinese restaurant staffed by no Chinese people. They have an extensive menu, though, and it’s cheap--$3.50 for the lunch special, which includes main dish, soup, egg roll, and fortune cookie. They have Coke products and Vitamin Water.

My parents and I once walked through Chinatown in New York looking for dinner. My mom had a genius idea—she found an NYPD officer and asked him. “He’s around here all the time, and probably spends about as much money on a meal as we want to spend, so yeah, he said to try this place called Wo-Hop.” We never would have seen it without his guidance—it was a down one level, a simple doorway amongst intermittent distractions. But it’s since turned into a family legend—I think Patrick still has the T-shirt.

I had no such beat wisdom in choosing Egg Roll King, but it seemed that all of the Wayne Township firefighters the station down the street could spare had arrived just before me. There were a few other contractors and UAW workers—all men. I was facing away from the counter, but as I ate my meal a woman and a man came in, got the lunch special for carryout and took off.

The food arrived fast enough for me to go to the glass wholesaler a block further west before I had to get back to work. I was the only client there, so I quickly told them my dimensions and waited for the guy in the back to make the cuts. The woman behind the counter opened a paper bag as a man came out of an office. He saw me as she handed him half of the food. Gesturing my way, he commented, “Man, everybody’s feeling Chinese today—this guy had the pineapple chicken!”