Vietnamese spring rolls are a popular dish in Malaysia, spreading across social media platforms, and being sold by many shops with thousands of rolls sold every day.
"We sold more than 1,200 rolls in an hour and a half, many customers were waiting but the stock was sold out," said Syahirah Husna, owner of H&S Brands, a shop specializing in selling Vietnamese spring rolls in Malaysia.
Syahirah Husna said that spring rolls are becoming a culinary trend in Malaysia as more and more online food stalls and mobile stores serve the dish. Syahirah learned about spring rolls a year ago through cooking videos on social media. She and her husband have never been to Vietnam or eaten the original dish, but they tried to make them following online instructions and planned to open a mobile store to sell to local customers.
The Syahirah couple’s mobile food stall opened in late December 2023, selling at a food court in Temerloh, a district in Pahang state, about 134 km from the capital Kuala Lumpur. Since May, the number of customers to the Syahirah couple’s spring roll stall has increased dramatically, selling out every day within more than an hour of opening. The stall consists of two tables put together, displaying plastic boxes containing ready-made spring rolls.
"For the past five months, we have been serving about 1,000 rolls every day, with peak days reaching 1,700," Syahirah said, adding that customers love spring rolls because they are convenient and use many healthy ingredients.
Despite its name, “Vietnam roll,” H&S Brands’ spring rolls have been tweaked to suit local tastes. Initially, the shop sold five types of rolls, but now they have increased to 12, with fillings such as beef, chicken, crab sticks, salmon, smoked duck, shrimp, served with lettuce, cucumber, and sohun, a traditional Malaysian dish similar to Vietnamese vermicelli. The rice paper used for the rolls is imported from Thailand.
The dipping sauce has also been modified to suit Malaysian tastes. There are two types of dipping sauce, the Thai-style dipping sauce which is sour, sweet and spicy, using red chillies, coriander and spice powder. The other type is the green sauce, using mayonnaise, green herb sauce, coriander, fish sauce and spices, which is fatty and spicy.
"Diners usually order green sauce," Syahirah said, adding that the price of four rolls with their own flavor is 13 ringgit (76,000 VND), with Thai sauce included, and customers who choose green sauce pay an additional 2 ringgit (11,000 VND).
Every day, Syahirah and her husband spend 3-4 hours preparing ingredients, setting up shop at 5:30 p.m. and selling for 1-2 hours, with a break on Thursday.
Not only selling on-site, Syahirah also created social media accounts to post videos and pictures of the spring roll shop, attracting millions of views. Many other spring roll shops in Malaysia are as popular as Syahirah's shop.
The House of Vietnam rolls mobile shop in Semenyih, Selangor, is always sold out from 5pm to 7pm every day. It serves more than 10 types of spring rolls such as crab sticks, shrimp, beef, chicken, and bacon. The shop's videos about spring rolls posted on TikTok have attracted nearly a million views and interactions.
In July, Vietnamese spring rolls were Taste Atlas named in the list of the world's most attractive snacks, along with many delicious dishes from Asian countries such as Japan's takoyaki or India's samosa.
Malaysian diners all have positive comments about traditional Vietnamese dishes, saying that this dish is easy to make, can use a variety of ingredients, and is convenient because it is neatly rolled.
Some Vietnamese diners commented that traditional dishes imported to the neighboring country have been beautifully transformed, and the price is not too different from dishes in Vietnam.
"Malaysians are mostly Muslims so they don't use pork like Vietnamese spring rolls, their alternative ingredients are quite diverse," said Phong Nhien, 28 years old in Ho Chi Minh City.
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