First Look: Eggs Beyond Breakfast and Brunch at EggHolic in Irving

Eggs, a food item most popular here at breakfast or brunch, make an entire category themselves in the Indian subculture of lacto-ovo-vegetarians. Apart from vegetables and fruits, this diet allows for animal byproducts – dairy and egg – for protein. Eggholic, the Chicago-founded and Indian-owned chain, brings DFW just that experience.

Breakfast and brunch be damned; you can now have eggs for midday munchies, lunch and dinner.

“People know about [these dishes], but don’t know how to cook them,” says Rinkesh Dhanani, the general manager of the newly opened Eggholic in Irving. “This is not food cooked inside the homes, but out on the street.”

The void in the U.S. market for this type of cuisine is one of main the reasons they decided to expand this unique spot.

The interiors of Eggholic are far from the rustic, bare-bones street food carts that inspired most of the dishes here. Here it’s refitted for modern-day suburban American sensibilities. Yolk-yellow concrete floors spill throughout the space. Walls are filled with iconic lines from Bollywood movie greats, replicated in Hindi and Gujarati script. One wall screamed, “Wah Bhai Wah!” a Hindi phrase meaning “That’s awesome!”

And it was.

Start off with rich cheese katori, yolks mashed with herbaceous, cilantro-led masala, sitting inside boiled egg white boats, topped with grated cheese.

The star here is the surti gotalo, a Gujarati specialty. A thick tomato masala sauce is studded with shredded boiled egg then topped with two eggs sunnyside up. This egg-on-egg mash-up is served with either roti or a toasted sandwich square.

The anda masala sandwich is a two-layered sandwich, sliced into neat quarters (think club sandwich) made with grilled bread, melted cheese, mayonnaise, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes on the bottom. It’s paired with a tandoori masala spiced egg salad with a layer of sliced red onion. Squeeze out a dribble from the packet of ketchup that comes with it for the more traditional experience.

For chicken dishes (yes, they have chicken here), try their signature ‘Holic chicken kebabs made with charred marinated cubes of chicken breast, sprinkled with sumac and served over fluffy yellow long grain rice. The added sparkle of melted butter with a side of yogurt mint sauce and slices of raw red onion are a must.

Finish your meal with a mango mastani, an over-the-top, sippable celebration of fruit with a blended mango lassi and ice cream, topped with cashews, almond slivers and a generous drizzle of khus vetiver syrup. Or try the masala chaas, a savory, thin buttermilk drink, to cleanse your palate and aid with digestion of the egg-ceptional meal.

EggHolic, 7750 N. MacArthur Blvd., Suite 135 (Irving), 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday – Sunday