breakfast blogger

I had to cash a Western Union money order the other day, so I drove around until I saw a Western Union sign in a shop window. The shop happened to be a neighbourhood Filipino restaurant.

I decided to get some take-out lunch - rice with goat stew, and noticed some pretty big eggs on the counter, some of which were painted bright pink. I asked about them and decided on the pink ones - the others were “Balut‘ - basically a fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. Too much for me to handle just yet.

The pink eggs were Itlog na maalat/Itlog na Pula - Duck eggs that are hard boiled, then cured in warm brine. Their shells are often dyed with red food coloring to distinguish them from chicken eggs. I thought the size was a pretty good hint - but the pink was nice - they reminded me of Greek Easter Eggs.

The next morning - a lazy, rainy, Saturday, we decided to try them. We toasted some whole-wheat pitas and cut up some tomato slices, and peeled the eggs.

I laid the food out on plates and served them up. After 1 bite, my girlfriend thought the consistency a little too weird and very salty - so I ate both. I’ll admit, they weren’t delicious, but edible.

My girlfriend opted for freshly-pressed organic peanut butter and New Zealand Macadamia honey on her pita- it looked amazing but I stuck to my guns.

The honey was sent by an acqaintance of a friend, straight from New Zealand, and is some of the best honey I have ever had in my life. Honey is a new category of food for me now that I know such things exist - I also have a jar of Tasmanian Leatherwood honey that is also deliciously spicey in its’ own right.

So much for Filipino breakfast - although I doubt these duck eggs were intended for the first meal of the day, and also for eating straight up like we attempted. I will do the proper research and give these eggs a fair shot, and then maybe try the duck embryos…but after seeing those photos I’ve been having second thoughts. . . .

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Breakfasts, Montreal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.