Imagine if you ordered fried chicken at a restaurant, were so excited and confident you had ordered the right thing, could almost taste its deliciousness, and when the dish arrived it was poached scrod. And you had no one to blame but yourself. This great disappointment is akin to my recent experience of trying to order crispy deep fried “egg rolls” in a Vietnamese restaurant, and instead got cold, watery, leafy summer rolls. It was a tragic case of getting lost in translation. When they arrived, sadness descended upon the table. I rolled through the stages of grief, from denial “This is not what I ordered!” (it was), to anger, to bargaining (“okay if I eat two of these sticky cold ones, then I will deserve to get the right kind next time”), all the way to acceptance and self-loathing. This had to stop.

Before me was an opportunity to dive into the world of what Americans called egg rolls—and elsewhere as spring rolls, lumpia, cha gio, and the like. I’ve been a lifelong fan of any deep-fried, roll-shaped appetizer with a shatteringly crisp encasement. It almost doesn’t matter what’s inside: Bean thread noodles, cabbage, pork bits, sprouts, chicken—all are welcome. The egg rolls I grew up with were dense and thick, a crisp pock-marked exterior, ideal for dunking in neon red takeout sauce. But as my palate expanded, I discovered that there was indeed a world of egg rolls, beaming outward from Southeast Asia, and each had its own trait and idiosyncrasies. And all are delicious.