Will Courageux is a Frenchman living in Vietnam. He owns a TikTok channel with 3.4 million followers, mainly making videos about culture and cuisine of different regions of Vietnam.
Recently, Will invited his Taiwanese friends to Ho Chi Minh City to explore street food. The most memorable experience was the balut at a sidewalk restaurant on Xo Viet Nghe Tinh Street, Binh Thanh District.
When Will first arrived in Vietnam, he was impressed with the cuisine and challenged himself with this balut dish. He was startled and dropped the egg into the bowl, but after a few times, Will was able to enjoy it and gradually became "addicted".
Alan is one of three Taiwanese friends who traveled to Ho Chi Minh City and were taken by Will to eat balut. Initially, he was quite confident when he entered the restaurant to order, but when he saw the eggs being peeled, they looked unusual, Alan felt a distinct sense of fear. He covered his face and closed his eyes, not daring to look closely at the egg. While Will slowly peeled the shell, added seasonings and enjoyed his portion of eggs, another Taiwanese friend bravely ate the whole balut.
Balut is a dish made from duck eggs that take about 20 days to develop into embryos. The eggs are usually boiled thoroughly and then cracked to eat with Vietnamese coriander, julienned fresh ginger, and spices such as salt, pepper, and chili vinegar.
Although it is a rustic dish, loved by Vietnamese people for breakfast, balut has been on the list of "horror dishes" and "worst dishes" in the world many times because of its scary appearance. Not only Alan, many foreign tourists and even Vietnamese people do not dare to eat all of the balut (both the young duck in the process of forming and the yolk). Commenting on Will's video, some Vietnamese people shared that they can only eat the yolk of the balut.
Although it is a simple dish, depending on the region, balut has different ways of enjoying it. Diners can crack the egg shell in half like a normal egg, or crack one end of the egg and add spices to sip the liquid before eating the small part. Not only eaten alone, balut is also eaten with many other dishes such as crab vermicelli soup, stewed chicken noodles, congee...
