Eggspectation, Silver Spring, Md.

Saturday night, Robert and I Metroed up to Silver Spring, where there's a big festival shopping area with all kinds of shops, restaurants, and movie theaters. After wandering around a bit, we selected an intriguing restaurant called Eggspectation for dinner. As it turns out, Eggspectation is a chain with a small cluster of restaurants in the northeastern U.S. and a larger pool in Canada. While all-day breakfasts and egg dishes are their signature items, they have a full range of standard restaurant selections, including a full bar.

Robert started with a cocktail, pictured above. Actually, it sounded incredibly unusual and highly intriguing. It was called a Swedish fish martini, and was billed as having a little fish in the bottom. We couldn't imagine a fish-tasting martini! So, Robert ordered it.

It was, alas, not fishy. In fact, it was just the opposite: quite sweet. It reminded me a lot of a sweet cosmopolitan. It was good, if you like sweet cocktails. We couldn't find the fish in the botttom, so, thinking the bartender might have sent us the wrong drink, we had our waiter inquire. It turns out the drink is made with vanilla vodka, Chambord, and a little sweet and sour mix. They have little candy fish they usually put in the bottom of the glass, but they were out of them. They did not, however, discount the drink!

Dinner was simple. Robert ordered a maple-glazed ribeye steak that looked and smelled absolutely delicious. He remarked favorably about the maple glaze. The steak was accompanied by new potatoes and sauteed summer squashes. To wash down dinner, he drank an Otter Creek Oktoberfest beer, a micro brew from Vermont, that he thought quite good.



I ordered the Eggspectation salad. There must have been over a head of lettuce in the big bowl, with a good variety of greens including raddiccio and endive. A mound of sliced hams, turkey, and two cheeses rested on top and hard boiled egg, tomato, cucumber, ripe olives, and cherry tomatoes decorated the bowl. One of their house vinaigrettes lightly dressed the salad. It was very good, but so big I could hardly finish it.



Robert fell in love with the dessert list. They have a full assortment of cheesecakes, but what was particularly intriguing was their selection of cakes. Even with him forcing me to order a piece, too, we couldn't decide which two to get! Robert ended up with the Lemon Drop cake, a mildly lemon-scented cake with lemon buttercream icing and white chocolate fans. I had the Red Velvet cake, one of those deeply dyed red chocolate cakes in a cream cheese icing, but what made this one different was the addition of a layer of fudge sauce beneath the icing between the layers. My cake, as was Robert's, was still cold from the refrigerator; I would have preferred it be room temperature. Red velvet cake is an old Southern tradition, and this was just like every red velvet cake I've ever been made by a Southern lady—too dry. But, the icing always makes up for it, and I only wish I'd had a big glass of cold milk to wash it all down.



I enjoyed Eggspectation a lot, and I'm anxious to return so I can try some of their other items, especially breakfast foods. Their egg theme is cute, and they carry it out throughout the restaurant; even in the men's room, the mirrors were egg-shaped and the door handles were egg whisks. The nice thing about the place is that the prices are very moderate for the Washington metropolitan area, and yet the food was solid and good.