Wok & Roll’s Airport Crab Rangoons

The bar is low for airport food. That much we can all agree upon: You eat lunch in the terminal, you take your chances.

There’s no reason that this should be the case, however — perfectly fine food is eaten every day by people waiting to hear the boarding call for Flight 504 with service to Kansas City. For example: If you step up to the Wok & Roll restaurant in the Lindbergh Terminal, you can order a perfectly edible, wokked-to-order container of chicken fried rice. Overpriced? Yes. Uninspired? No doubt. But absolutely fit for human consumption. The suspiciously tender chicken and unremarkable fried rice make for a harmonious if workaday duo.

Therefore, the crab rangoons at Wok & Roll are fair game for commentary. $2.25 buys you a pair of the most tragically wretched fried appetizers you’ve ever had the misfortune to put in your mouth. These are fried dumplings that will break your heart — they’re sad like a dachshund puppy abandoned by accident on the international space station, just as the air supply runs out. Starting from the exterior, and working our way in:

The outer wrapper is chewy, not crunchy, stale as though it had been sitting out since dawn. As it probably was.

Filling leaks from the bottom of the squashed-octopus looking dumpling.

The wrapper, even if crispy, would be too thick.

Then the filling. Gummy. Cold. Vaguely fish-smelling. It’s a challenge to be less appetizing than the wrapper, but the filling accomplishes this sorry task with gusto. The filling… oh, the filling. If there is a straight-up polar opposite to what the Salty Tart puts into its heavenly pastry cream-filled brioche buns, here it is: savory instead of sweet, leaden instead of light, dag-nasty instead of deee-licious.

There is no photo of these rangoons because, immediately after biting into the first of two, I was overcome by the humanitarian impulse to immediately throw them into the nearest trash can. Beyond that, natural instinct suggested burning the trash can and then burying it, but both of these reasonable ideas were incompatible with the modern aviation environment.

Ordering the crab rangoons at Wok & Roll’s airport location is not recommended.

6 Comments

  1. Aaron Landry

    Dedicated Reader – Ha!

    That said, I got thinking about airport food that I’ve enjoyed and couldn’t come up with much. Recently had travelled, I guess I had an Annie’s Pretzel and a VitaminWater. There’s a Houlhan’s at MSP that’s outside of security. I wonder if that’s the best bet over there now?

  2. James Norton

    On a less local note, I got a Gold Coast Chicago jumbo char dog at O’Hare on my way back — really pretty decent. Middle of the pack for Chicago dogs overall, which is great for an airport.

  3. Katie

    For the Mpls airport, I personally always go for the D’Amico salads (their turkey and dried cherry salad is dreamy) either at the food court just inside security or sold at the Caribou’s in the concourses.

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