Hoping to open restaurant, young Wichita entrepreneur launches popular egg roll business
Her dream is to open a restaurant, and it’s really all she thinks about.
But in the meantime, 20-year-old Tuong Huynh is doing everything she can to raise money toward her goal, and at the moment, that involves rolling and deep frying fresh Vietnamese egg rolls night and day, day and night.
Tuong is the owner of a new business called Xing Xing, which she launched over the summer with the help of her husband, TJ Huynh.
For now, it’s a home-based business where Tuong prepares egg rolls by the dozen plus fried rice and dumplings and invites people to order the food then pick it up. Since June, the business has grown through word of mouth and because of Tuong’s creative marketing — and willingness to prepare food with just two hours’ notice. These days, she’s preparing and selling about 1,000 egg rolls a week.
The goal is to grow the business and open a Xing Xing food truck followed by a pho restaurant in Wichita. Her ambitious timeline has this all happening within a year.
But she’s encouraged by the way her business has taken off over just a few months.
“My passion is doing food,” Tuong said. “In my heart, that’s what I want to do.”
Tuong came to the United States from Vietnam as a high school foreign exchange student and went to Bishop Carroll High School. She’s now attending Butler Community College, and a year ago, she married TJ.
He works full time at Spirit AeroSystems, he said, but both TJ and Tuong have experience in the restaurant business. His family owns restaurants in Vietnam, he said.
TJ, who also came to the United States to attend high school at East High and then went on to study at Butler and Wichita State University, said he started working in Wichita Asian restaurants as a teen and also worked at McDonald’s. Tuong, meanwhile, has worked as a waitress at Saigon Bistro and at Pho Ong 8 at Harry and Oliver, a restaurant her grandmother started.
When she decided she wanted to start saving for her restaurant, Tuong said, she watched multiple videos on YouTube about how to make the egg rolls. She took a little from each one and came up with what she considers the perfect recipe. Her egg rolls, unlike the cabbage-filled, bumpy-surfaced rolls served at many Chinese restaurants, are cigar-shaped with a smooth, crispy exterior and a filling made of pork, carrots, taro and onion. “Crispy outside but juicy inside,” she says.
She’s’ had some people tell her that what she makes are spring rolls, not egg rolls. But in Vietnamese culture, she said, spring rolls are not fried but rather are made with fresh rice paper wrappers. In Vietnam, egg rolls are like the ones she’s making.
Tuong said she is determined to open her restaurant, and she’s tried different marketing techniques and giveaways on her Facebook page to promote her current business. She’s planning some big promotions at Christmastime, too, she said.
Her business motto, which is printed on her logo along with an adorably hungry kitty: “Better food, better mood.”
Xing Xing’s egg rolls and dumplings both cost $9 for one dozen, $17 for two dozen and $25 for three dozen. A serving of char siu fried rice is $7. She can also do big trays of 50 egg rolls for $36, and people have been ordering platters for parties, showers and weddings.
Anyone interested in placing an order should call 316-789-5060 or message Xing Xing on Facebook. Once an order is placed, customers get the address for pick up.
I’ll keep you posted on the Huynhs progress toward their food truck and restaurant.
Xing Xing menu
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