Joe's Steam Rice Roll 石磨腸粉王

This place is crazy busy on a Sunday around noon. Kudos to the young man who was the cashier on keeping everything organized, from customer orders and questions, telephone orders, pickups from delivery guys. The kitchen team were working as fast as they could.

It is tiny, with seating enough for 8-10, all facing the kitchen wall. I ordered takeout and waited about 20 mins. I was able to watch. One couple sat and talked and did not pay attention to the employee calling out order numbers. He must have called at least 3 times. Another couple sat and took their time, as did a woman, as orders came into for more sit downs. By the time, I got my order, the cashier stepped out to the seating area to get people moving along so other customers could sit down to eat.

I tried the dried shrimp and the beef steamed rice rolls. Added egg, along with scallions, cilantro, and bean sprouts. Not sure if I would do the egg and bean sprouts in the future. The sauce was ok, not like the traditional sauce you would get at a dim sum restaurant. It cost me $15 for two large orders. That is a pretty good deal and that was enough for 4 people.

All in all, it was a good experience stepping into the organized lunchtime chaos. The steamed rice rolls were good. I will return but not during noon on a weekend.

Their steam rice rolls have such a nice light, milky texture and they don't skimp on the ingredients. I do prefer the location in Chinatown because of the sauce options. You have to ask for the peanut sauce here, and they also only have soy sauce and chili oil. So there's just a lot less flavor. The jian bing here is super nice! Only $5 and an additional $1 if you want to add some sort of meat in it. It's super flavorful and has a nice spicy mayo-esque sauce in it that made it extra special.

It's super chaotic here, so it took a while to order and it felt super rushed. There is little seating, and it's kind of like sitting at a bar. Not a fan. But overall, pretty solid food.

So I grew up in California and we spent a lot of time visiting Chinatown in San Francisco. This area is reminiscent of that location, and I had a great time eating the food. I've never had a steam rice roll before, but I've seen people eat them and I've always been curious about the taste.

Once I entered the restaurant the guy taking the orders went over what a Rice roll was and some of the toppings and how the food was prepared. I appreciated the service that he provided because I didn't know the language and I was super concerned about what I was getting myself into.

The restaurant is honestly a hole in the wall, you sit at these tables that are along the cooking area and there's a couple of tables in the back. The ambience kind of lends it's ear to eating in the middle of Tokyo, like in an alleyway. I had no issue with the vibe at all. The food was amazing. There were toppings at the table, and everyone was really good about cleaning up after themselves. The great thing is they take your trash from you when you're done to recycle, I thought that was awesome!

I've been wanting to try this Joe's Rice Roll place for a while now. It's supposed to be one of the better cheap eats spots in Flushing. I went on a weekend morning recently and finally got to try it. The place has a very small entrance on Roosevelt Ave so it's pretty easy to miss. It's housed in a mini food court that has a bunch of other places. There are a few seats, but seating overall is extremely limited. It got crowded for the lunch rush, which is to be expected.

I ordered the large Curry Fish Ball Rice Roll ($7). Total was $7 flat, which isn't bad. I have to note that it took a long time for me to get my order. It seemed like there was only one guy making the rice rolls so each order was taking forever. It might've taken about 25-30 minutes, but I finally got my order and took it across the street to the New World Mall food court to eat.

I thought the flavor and texture on this food item was pretty good. The rice rolls tasted fresh and had a nice, pleasantly slitherly texture. The curry fish balls were tasty as well. However, for a 'large' order, there wasn't that much food in the container. I wish they filled it up a bit more. So I enjoyed the rice roll and definitely want to try a different one next time, but was a bit disappointed in the quantity given.

I will give this 3 stars overall for the time being. Didn't quite meet the hype for me, but can see why people like it a lot. Cheers.

Daughter requested this from Flushing so on my way back from running errands dropped by to pick up some. It's still a literal hole in the wall place. There are a few seats at the counter but most people were ordering take out. There were lots of people crowded around waiting for their order.
I was told there was a 25 min. wait which I expected. So I asked if I could order, run out and then come back. The guy said sure so after ordering I ran out to get other yummy foods.
So I ordered the beef rice roll with scallions for my daughter and I got the shrimp, egg, scallions, rice roll for myself. When I got them they were piping hot. It took me 30 minutes to get home and it was still warm. I don't know what they do to these rice rolls but they are softer and smoother than any ones I've had. My complaint is that my rice roll only had a sprinkling of shrimp. My daughter felt like her's had enough beef. I asked if she would be willing 30 min for something like this and she said no. I think I would have to agree. If it wasn't for the fact there was something I could do before coming back I wouldn't have waited either. It's very good but not necessarily a 30 min wait good.

We tried this place because one of the Yelp reviews says that it's the best steam rolls that they have ever had. It lived up to that statement!

The rolls had a really good texture and were delicious. You can pick different veggies or meat ingredients. Tasted freshly made.

The price is inexpensive versus anything that you purchase in Manhattan.

HAPPY STEAM ROLLING!

RATING: 9.3/10

PRO TIP: Whatever you get here it'll be good. Freshness is key here.

We got a variety of rice rolls - as someone who grew up eating this, it's hard to impress but you know you're getting it fresh here when you order, and it has this really great tender chew with that subtle sweetness. Maybe one area that could be better is that there's not a ton of filling in there, but they are so cheap and this still ranks as some of the best rice rolls I've had, sans going to actual dim sum and getting them fresh. For variety, I think Fu Yuan is better (they have the crispy shrimp rice roll) but I like the actual chueng fun (the "dough" itself) here better.

FINAL CATEGORY : EXCELLENT
(terrible / bad / ok / good / great / EXCELLENT)

Very solid and flavorful! I love its location with the food stalls surrounding it too. Come here for a satisfying quick bite.

You need to add tons and tons of sauce to their rice rolls to taste any flavor. They didn't have any peanut sauce either so that was disappointing. Very mid. The people working were very rude and rushing everything. They were so stingy on giving me an extra fork and napkins. Would not go back.

Absolutely the best rice rolls I've had in such a long time! The last time I had such tender and smooth rice rolls was during dim sum in Chinatown many years ago.

I ordered Joe's Signature (w/corn, scallions & cilantro), dried shrimp steam rice roll (w/corn, scallions & cilantro) & vegetarian rice roll (w/corn). My mil (mother-in-law) loves the vegetarian steam rice rolls here, she only adds corn or corn and cilantro. All the ingredients are fresh and you can tell which made these steam rice rolls explode with flavor. My husband usually eats steam rice rolls with soy sauce but he didn't need any with Joe's Signature steam rice rolls. He said all the ingredients were fresh, delicious and cooked just right.

Joe's Rice Rolls are made from scratch and anyone who's had it will notice the difference between their rice rolls and anyone else's rice rolls. That's why Joe's Rice Rolls gets my yummylicious stamp of approval! This is a must-try place you'll be so glad you did.