When you look around, you can see Wichita’s cultural renaissance happening. We have breweries, Hawaiian food, too many chicken restaurants, and finally Filipino food. If you have yet to be exposed to lumpia, lumpia is a spring roll commonly found in the Phillippines. Spring roll and egg roll are generally used interchangeably when discussing the savory appetizers consisting of a wrapper rolled around a type of filling, but egg rolls generally refer to the rolls served in American Chinese cuisine and spring rolls refer to everything else. Lumpia consists of a thin crepe pastry skin enveloping a mixture of savory fillings, usually consisting of vegetables and meat. LumpiaPalooza, a food truck offshoot of Parsnipity Cafe, offers several varieties of lumpia, appealing to both carnivores and vegans alike. LumpiaPalooza made a rare appearance downtown and we jumped at the first chance to eat there. We had heard so much about LumpiaPalooza and wanted to see what they had to offer.
Lumpiapalooza offers a few selections of lumpia each time that they serve from the food truck, and they always include a vegan option. On our recent visit, they served their original, cordon bleu, crab rangoon, and Caribbean (vegan). At $2 each, we decided to try all 4 varieties as well as their fried rice. We received good portion sizes for the price.
The original looked and tasted similar to what one would expect for a traditional lumpia, although the wrapper was decidedly store-bought and heavier than crepe-y. The cordon bleu was overwhelming cheesy. The crab rangoon was squishy, but definitively crab rangoon. We all agreed that the Caribbean probably had the best and most interesting flavor, but was also squishy. Overall, I think we felt the most let down with the lack of flavor and floppy texture of the lumpia. We would not recommend ordering the fried rice, as it can somehow be described in the same way.
I appreciated the new concept and cultural recognition that LumpiaPalooza offered, but I was disappointed in the execution. I would be willing to give it another try, given the price point and risk level, but our first try was not promising.
LumpiaPalooza
Various locations
316-617-4238
Various hours