Restaurant Serves Everything Egg and More
We went searching for brunch Sunday and ended up at Eggspectation. Eggspecation is a small international chain with five locations in the DMV (that’s all of their U.S. locations) – Ellicott City and Silver Spring in Maryland, and Leesburg, Chantilly and Gainesville in Virginia. There is also one in Ottawa, four in Montreal, three in other Quebec cities and three in India. The breakfast menu is available all day long.
Eggspectation’s Ellicott City location (Photo: Info USA)
With a name like Eggspectation, you gotta think breakfast. So a friend and I headed up to Ellicott City just north of Columbia for brunch. But don’t worry, they have more than just eggs and breakfast – they have starters and small plates, salads, sandwiches, burgers, entrees and desserts along with a separate page of seasonal dishes and desserts.
But we were after brunch this Sunday and I had been craving Eggs Benedict. To my pleasure, they have a full page of benedicts. It was a tough choice – should I go with the traditional Eggs Benedict with poached eggs, ham and hollandaise sauce served on English muffins, or maybe the lobster benny with sautéed lobster instead of the ham, or even the Chesapeake Benedict with Gruyere cheese and lump crab meat. In all they have 10 versions.
Eggspectation’s classic Eggs Benedict (Photo: Mark Heckathorn/DC on Heels)
I stuck with the original and they were delicious. The poached eggs were cooked perfectly and the yolk oozed out over the ham and English muffin when I cut into it. The scratch made hollandaise sauce made from real eggs and butter was spot on and the English muffin had just the right crunch. The Eggs Benedict came with Eggspecation’s Lyonnaise-style potatoes sautéed to a golden brown with caramelized onions, butter and fresh herbs and fresh fruit.
The restaurant only serves Souders gold eggs, which are enriched with Omega-3 fatty acid essential for good health. Souders gold eggs contain 325 mg of Omega-3, almost 10 times as much as regular eggs and luten in the eggs promotes long-term eye health and natural Vitamin E contributes to a healthy circulatory system.
The Chesapeake crepes at Eggspectation (Photo: Mark Heckathorn/DC on Heels)
My friend choose the Chesapeake crepes, which are crepes stuffed with lump crab meat, peppers, green onions and three cheeses topped with cocktail sauce. There were two large crepes the width of the plate. The filling was delicious and stuffed with crabmeat, but the crepe itself left a bit to be desired (Crepes on the Walk outside Gallery Place and the Verizon Center makes better crepes).
If you are a breakfast lover but hate eggs, don’t worry. In addition to eggs served in any way (11 kinds of omelettes, a frittata, huevos rancheros, scrambled, over easy, etc.), they have other choices too. There’s potato latkes, lobster grits with lobster meat served over white cheddar grits, seven kinds of pancakes, five varieties of French toast, waffles, bagels and breakfast burritos just to name a few.
There’s fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juice every day, smoothies, an espresso bar, specialty coffees, fruit and yogurt. They also have a full bar. Many of their dishes are gluten free too, and marked in the menu for easy identification.
Silver Spring, Ellicott City and Chantilly are open from 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 7 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday. Gainesville and Leesburg have shorter hours. The Ellicott City location is in a strip mall at 610 University Blvd. Silver Spring is located in Silver Plaza at 923 Ellsworth Dr. and the Chantilly restaurant is at 8058 Crescent Dr.
Editor-in-Chief Mark Heckathorn is a journalist, movie buff and foodie. He oversees DC on Heels editorial operations as well as strategic planning and staff development. Reach him with story ideas or suggestions at dcoheditor (at) gmail (dot) com.
