In collaboration with my friend Jen Knox, of LiveLoveApex.com, we joined forces on a new series Eating Through the Peak! We will take categories etc one by one and post our experiences and individual point of view on each of our platforms. The first project took us 5 dates, with 6 stops, to taste all the untraditional EGG ROLLS we could find in Apex! Hopefully we didn’t miss any! If you know of any we did miss, please comment below! Remember, all the restaurants we visited have an Apex, NC location. Read below for our findings! Maybe you will learn about a new place to try!
I prefer to go in chronological order, so we start with our first visit to TapStation, where they have quite the selection of egg rolls, both savory AND sweet!
TapStation is a newish restaurant on the scene in Apex, and it is a great addition! I have not had anything on the menu I didn’t like. For savory egg rolls, they offer 4 choices, each with a different dipping sauce. They are Buffalo Chicken (a different take than their sister restaurant Mason Jar Tavern in nearby Holly Springs and Fuquay), Veggie, Cheeseburger, and Pimento Cheese.
They were all good, but my personal favorite was the Cheeseburger!
Next we tried 2 sweet egg roll options- yes 2, even though the menu only had one- Apple Pie, they also have a Seasonal Feature. At the time of our visit, it was Sweet Potato Pecan.
The Sweet Potato was a little messy, but that was my favorite, which was unexpected for me. I am not the biggest sweet potato fan usually!
All in all, we enjoyed our visit to TapStation, but couldn’t eat another bite that day after having 6 egg rolls!
STOP 2: Scratch Kitchen & Taproom, Apex, NC (another sister restaurant to TapStation)
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At Scratch, they only have one type of egg roll on the menu: BBQ. So we decided to also try another fried feature on their appetizer selection, Smoked Pimento Cheese Wontons!
Again, they both came with dipping sauces. My favorite was the wontons. They were just unique!
STOP 3: Doherty’s Irish Pub & Restaurant (Apex NC Location)
So I always enjoy Doherty’s when I think to go there to eat. I usually think of it as a drink and socialize place, as they are known for their epic community parties. But I will think of it more from now on to eat, as I have found a new love: their Irish Egg Rolls!
These are something I NEVER would have ordered on my own, had it not been for this project! I was pleasantly surprised by the delight in my mouth when I ate these. I have had them twice since our blog research visit. These are made of corned beef, sauerkraut, and swiss cheese, with homemade Thousand Island to dip in. I am not a fan of any of those ingredients separately, but boy oh boy do they mix well together! Can you tell they were my favorite on our tour?
STOP 4: Apex Wings– Apex, NC
This was another location that had multiple options, at least for savory egg rolls. They even have a sampler so you can have one of each flavor they make. The three options there are Buffalo Chicken (they are a chicken restaurant, so duh!), Reuben, and Italian!
They were all yummy but my favorite was the Italian. It was like pizza in an egg roll, and I love me some pizza!
STOP 5: Just when we thought we were done, we found another place in town that has a specialty egg roll. Not to be left out, Johnny’s Pizza in Apex had to be visited!
They Johnny’s, there was a savory option: Philly Cheesesteak! They were the most generous in portion, at 4 egg rolls per order.
I won’t lie, this one was not my favorite, but NOT because it was bad. I committed to the project and still ate most of it, but had to pick out the onions cause I HATE onions. Jen liked it. I would highly recommend to others, if they like a traditional cheesesteak with the onions and such!
And then we were done. NOT QUITE!
I went for lunch at TapStation during the first Apex Restaurant Week (not to be missed by the way), and discovered they had a new Seasonal Sweet egg roll! OREO! WHA???????? My egg roll dreams have come true. I texted Jen and we made an emergency date for a STOP 6, leaving room for dessert. They DID NOT disappoint! I don’t know how long these will be around, but if you love fried fair-type food, this is for you! Or if you love Oreos, or just chocolatety desserts in general!!!
We CLEARLY hated them. NOT! I have such a sweet tooth. This was the perfect way to end our egg roll tour of Apex.
Editing to add yet ANOTHER new sweet egg roll flavor at TapStation! They currently have a special Peach Cobbler egg roll available. It was so good!!! It will be interesting to see how often they change these, and what other flavors they come up with! Might I suggest a chocolate peanut butter, s’mores, banana pudding, etc?
What about you? Have you tried any of these options around town? What is your favorite?
Go check out Jen’s take at liveloveapex.com!
NEXT UP with EATING THROUGH THE PEAK: Sweets on Salem!
We are definitely satisfying our sweet tooth with this project.
Let us know your ideas for food categories to focus on in the future!