On August 4, Egg Lush replaced what was formerly Urban Steam at 1025 S. Sierra Madre St., bringing the first taste of Korean-style egg sandwiches to the Springs.
They’re a style of brioche-bun sandwiches presented somewhat like old-school-style White Castle sliders, in open-top cardboard boxes, but bigger and a little messier. (Fear not, you’ll have fun.) They were apparently launched and popularized in Seoul, South Korea, by a place named EGGDROP. And there’s since been U.S.-based spinoffs like the Egg Tuck chain.
Owner of Egg Lush, Rachael Nam, who grew up in Seoul until she was 21, tells me she believes herself to be the first to bring these egg sandwiches to Colorado as a whole. I spent some time online scoping forums and such to see if I could verify that, and it appears this Centennial spot named Mad Toast, inside the CoArk Collective Korean food hall, might qualify with their Korean-style toast items. But that’s ultimately an unimportant matter when it comes to you checking this new space out closer to home.
We order the bacon and cheese and Salisbury steak egg sandwiches, with side orders of fries and loaded Egg Lush tots, plus the strawberry matcha latte and ube matcha milk tea, and a house coffee. There’s also an avocado sandwich, as well as ham and cheese and more barebones Lush Classic. They all start with scrambled eggs inside the “buttery slow-fermented brioche” and are topped with house Lush mayo and spicy mayo. Hence the messy part; it’s impossible to keep it out of my beard when biting.
Texturally, the sandwiches are soft and spongy, and the bacon is left chewy vs. crispy, making us think of Korean pork belly. For the Salisbury steak, the sole sandwich to get a fried egg vs. scrambled (hence yolk down my hand), Nam seasons ground beef and pork with Korean spices and sauces like garlic and soy, and cooks it into a thin, hamburger-like patty. Both sandwiches are rich and filling (at $11.95 and $12.95 respectively). This is definitely morning or midday comfort food. (They’re currently open daily from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with plans to extend to 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. after grand opening celebrations on September 27.)
Friends who’d visited before told me Egg Lush’s fries are good. Thick, crispy and salty. The tots too are quality, especially topped with scrambled eggs and the mayo sauces, making it more of a meal than a side item.
Both matcha drinks are colorful and on the sweet side, but not cloyingly so. Nam says the matcha bar will be the drink focus, as she plans to add more flavors soon, like peach, pineapple and mango. She sources the drip coffee from local roastery Dynamo, and it sips on the medium-dark side, smooth and easy drinking like good diner coffee. There’s no espresso drinks and she says she’s considering a liquor license for later to offer popular brunch-style drinks.
Egg sandwich choices too are likely to grow, and she teases a bulgogi version, as well as more sides like a Korean rice cake and mini sausage skewer (sotteok sotteok). Nam tells me she spent a long time sampling brioche breads from many bakeries before finally selecting one she liked enough for Egg Lush. “So many were too soggy or soft,” she says.
This is actually her second business in town, as she started KBBQ2GO at Chapel Hills Mall last year. She came to the Springs around five years ago after decade-long stints in both Virginia and California. Her husband’s stationed at Fort Carson.
On a personal note, I ask her why she wished to enter the restaurant industry, and she says she wanted to try new things, and desires to create a model (kind of like a B Corp by the sound of it) where she can give back a percentage of the proceeds to the community. Inspired by a TV news story that impacted her years ago, related to an abused and orphaned child, she says she wants to help children.
“This was a turning point in my life,” she says, “I have to do something. It’s my life mission.”