Eggs are versatile. Used as an ingredient in an appetizer through dessert or served during breakfast to dinner. To prove it’s flexibility, 41 restaurants across Toronto are showcasing an egg dish on their menu from October 18 to November 30, 2024, for the Dine With Eggs event.

Lucky me, I sampled six of their creations at the launch. And while there were a lot of egg sandwiches, each had their own twist.

The Croque a la Daisy is that gets-you-out-of-bed after a night of drinking breakfast sandwich from Lazy Daisy's Café. Their version of a croque madame starts with a rosemary cheddar biscuit encasing a fried egg complete with Black Forest ham, Gruyère, and a Parmesan crisp. It’s hearty, especially with the white sausage gravy topping the biscuit, but everything works together and somehow the egg helps tone down the other ingredients.

Alma + Gil swaps out the ham for slow cooked porchetta and the biscuit with a brioche bun in their porchetta breakfast sando. The sunny-side-up egg is topped with chimichurri, truffle mustard aioli, Parmesan, and a bit of the pork’s crackling for texture. While I would have liked the bun warmed, there’s a delicateness to the sandwich that makes it almost refreshing.  

It’s a complete opposite to Hot Pork’s BBQ combo where smoked brisket and pork belly comingles with the fried egg. Along with cheddar cheese, hollandaise, BBQ sauce, mayo, and hot sauce, to say it’s a flavour explosion is not an exaggeration. But it’s a flavour bomb I love and my favourite dish of the evening. That gooey egg yolk covering the peppery brisket and tender pork belly… this is one combo that shouldn’t be missed.

Yet, the winner that stole the judges’ heart was the yuzu avocado “croast” by Yokai Izakaya. There’s a lot going on with the dish: starting with a croissant at the base, which is covered with a poached egg, smoked salmon, salad greed, pickled onion, and whipped ricotta. The egg mixes with the yuzu avocado crema and mentaiko vinaigrette becoming a dressing that glues everything together. It’s inventive and different, even from a Japanese perspective.

Fattoush Sandwich Club’s falafel Scotch egg was beautiful to behold. And while a runnier egg would work better against the drier falafel, I loved their take on the traditional pub dish that makes it vegetarian and less gluttonous. Hopefully, the dish will make a come-back in the Spring as it would work so well for an Easter brunch.

It wouldn’t be a meal without dessert. Midnight Cookie created the creme brûlée cookie featuring a soft and chewy brown sugar cookie topped with a torched pastry crème. While it could have been too rich, the cookie wasn’t overly sugary so that it helped balance off the sweetness of the brûléed custard. I saw my fair share of people skipping the savoury to start with this enticing sweet.

Dine with Eggs is a huge event to showcase Burnbrae Farm’s eggs, a multi-generation Canadian company that supplies about a third of the eggs that consumers buy in stores. You’ll also be eating for a good cause as a portion of each dish sold is donated to Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital.

At the launch, Canada’s paralympic Dominic Cozzolino noted how much Holland Bloorview helped get him through the hurdles he experienced after getting into an accident and severing his spinal cord. The hospital supports over 8,500 children annually with different disabilities but prides itself for creating a supportive stigma-free environment. In fact, Dominic reminisced about the familial feel of the hospital, not the same memories other hospitals may elicit.

Still, something about eggs reminds us about loved ones – scrambled eggs with all the fixings over breakfast or that beautiful molten egg yolk that provokes an “ooh” as it’s broken. It’s certainly a main ingredient around my dinner table since I aim to be vegetarian during the week. A crustless quiche, fried egg on a hash, egg tacos, or a toad-in-a-hole tomato sandwich frequently make appearances.

Dine with Eggs is a great time to remember this humble but important ingredient. A cornerstone of many meals and diets across the country. Let’s get cracking.