Searching Out Vietnamese Comfort Food "Balut" in Japan

Balut is duck fetus boiled in the shell.

It's seen as a comfort food in Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia.

In Japan, it's been mentioned quite a bit lately—manga fans might also have heard of it from the manga Oishinbo.

During my Vietnam trip, there were street vendors set up by the side of the road with pots of boiling balut eggs out in front, with each egg selling for about 17 to 26 cents U.S. a pop.

For every purchase, you also got a side of lime, salt and water pepper leaves, too.

They're served to you piping hot because they're fished right out of the pot upon purchase.

On the inside is a sort of soupy juice though, so be careful when you start peeling off that shell.

Once you’ve peeled to about where it is in the photo, start slurping out the soup!

And good egg soup it is, too... Or is that duck soup?

The inside looks like this. Instead of egg white and egg yolk, you get a little duckling fetus.

Now for a big bite seasoned with salt and lime. (If you're already freaking out at this point, imagining that you're downing a shot of tequila might help.) It might look gross but the taste is somewhere between egg and chicken meat. And it's really good.

The duck meat itself is really juicy with plenty of "soup." You can even make out the little duck bill and feet and it has this al dente and sometimes even crunchy feel. So many flavors and textures all in one...

Balut is high in nutrition, too. Apparently, pregnant women in Vietnam like eating these as way to stock up on nutrients and vitamins.

A tiny life suspended inside a single, tiny egg. I think that being able to see and experience something like this firsthand is something you could only really probably have with balut.

Try it once and you'll be hooked! The same thing happened to me... But now that I'm back in Japan, I have to say that I've never actually seen a restaurant here that serves balut. (And there are so many Vietnamese restaurants in Japan, too...)

I know, I know. "It might taste good but the visuals are just... ugh!" Am I right?

But hear me out—Balut is so good that when I returned from my Vietnam trip I thought about it every day. I even woke up with drool on my pillow from dreaming about balut at night!

One day—at long last—I got word that someone had spotted it at Ameyoko, a shopping street in Tokyo's Ueno area. It made perfect sense that they would have it here, too, seeing as Ameyoko is full of all kinds of interesting ethnic foods and products.

On the basement floor of the Ameyoko Center Building is an Asian grocery store section. Having only had it in Vietnam, where it's called hột vịt lộn, I was unfamiliar with the English word for it, "balut," which apparently comes from its name in Tagalog. But they are pretty much the same thing.

Apart from Ameyoko, you might also be able to find balut in Tokyo by trying out the Little Saigon in Kamata, Ota. Although in Japan you won't usually find balut being sold at Vietnamese restaurants, you should be able to find them at Vietnamese and Asian grocery stores if you look hard enough.

At one such store I went to, I asked the staff there if balut was selling well. The reply I got was, "Well, sometimes we get homesick Filipino students who buy them..." Uh-huh. I guess they don't sell that well!!