I was in New York recently, and went for breakfast in a diner. My wife ordered an egg sandwich, and although it wasn't specifically listed on the menu, I asked if I could get a bacon sandwich.
The waitress just looked at me for a moment (I found that some New Yorkers seemed confused by my British accent), then said "A bacon roll?". Thinking she meant a bread roll with bacon on it, I said yes.
When the food came, my wife's egg sandwich was exactly what you'd expect. My bacon roll was what seemed to be something similar to an omelette with bacon in it, with a mixture of boiled potatoes, onions, peppers and something other things on the side, plus jam and toast.
So, my questions…
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What exactly is an American bacon roll?
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What is the accompanying vegetable side dish called, and what are the ingredients?
Additional detail: A sausage roll in England is sausage meat wrapped in pastry but bizarrely, any other roll (e.g. bacon, cheese, ham, tuna, etc) is a filled bread roll, so a sausage roll and a bacon roll have absolutely nothing in common. I wondered if there was a similar oddity with the word roll in the US.
The vegetable dish was roughly cut boiled potatoes (not roasted or browned in any way) with cooked onion, peppers, and some other unidentified vegetables. There were no spices or other seasoning (it was pretty bland), so it doesn't sound like or look like Cajun Home Fries as has been suggested by @Catija.
Best Answer
I have no clue what a "bacon roll" is... and if I had to imagine what it is, it would not be what you got. My mental image was a "sausage roll" but with bacon.
A sausage roll is like a pinwheel or "cinnamon roll" but with savory biscuit dough (American biscuit) and ground sausage meat:
So, a "bacon roll" in my head is the same thing but with chopped bacon instead of sausage.
I can find no reference to what you've described... which sounds like a bacon omelet. It's completely possible that you confused the waitress with your fancy British accent and she thought that a "roll" was British for "omelet"... though how she turned "sandwich" into "roll" and then into "omelet", I'm not sure.
If you want a "bacon sandwich" in future (meaning a roll with bacon on it), you might try asking for a "BLT - with no lettuce or tomato".... though, you should be sure to remember that our "bacon" is what you Brits call "streaky bacon", I believe. The closest thing we have to British bacon is "Canadian Bacon" or simply "ham".
As to the potatoes, they were likely what are often called "home fries". Roughly chopped/diced potatoes, sometimes mixed with peppers and/or onions.
Here's an image of "Cajun home fries", which look a lot like what you've described: