Better Taste. Better Nutrition. Better Eggs.

Last week I attended a fabulous dinner at Stella, which was hosted by Eggland's Best and Mary Kate of Kitchenbelle.

Eggland's Best and Mary Kate invited about 30 or so food bloggers from the Boston area to have breakfast for dinner and learn about Eggland's Best eggs. It didn't take much to convince me to go since I already love EB eggs, and I'm always up for going out to dinner.

When I arrived at Stella, our room wasn't quite ready for us, so I played that guessing game of trying to figure out who the other food bloggers were and started introducing myself to others and chitchatting in the bar area. Eventually, we were led through the restaurant to a large event room in the back. I had been to Stella before but had never realized this room existed. The space had that crisp, clean, bright appeal to it. I really liked it and loved the way EB had decorated with cartons of eggs and other paraphernalia.

While we enjoyed a delicious dinner replete with egg dishes, we learned a lot about Eggland's Best. I'm already a big fan. I always use Eggland's Best eggs when I'm making scrambled eggs, omelets, fried eggs, or any dishes where you can really taste the egg itself. When I'm baking, I'll use whatever eggs I have because the flavor isn't prominent, but I usually do have EB eggs. I tend to only buy EB eggs unless I'm at Whole Foods, which doesn't carry them. I'm hoping that will eventually change.

While I knew that I preferred the taste of EB eggs, I never really bothered to take the time to understand why. The slogan of the evening was pretty much "what goes in comes out," meaning that what the chickens eat is what ends up in the eggs. So if they're fed garbage, then we're getting garbage. If they're given high-quality feed, like EB chickens get, then we're getting a high-quality egg. EB also puts all of the eggs through rigorous tests to make sure customers are getting eggs with lower levels of cholesterol and saturated fat and higher levels of Vitamin E, Lutein, and Omega 3.

Now that I've filled you in on the EB egg details, I bet you're wondering what we had for dinner. The chef at Stella prepared a bunch of great dishes using EB eggs.

First, while we ordered our Bloody Marys and mimosas, servers offered us hard boiled egg wedges, which were incredibly delicious.

Menus were placed on all of our tables, and we discussed which options we were going to choose only to find out that the spread would be buffet style and we would get a chance to try everything.

First up were a fruit salad (which lucky for us did not have eggs) and Stella's chopped salad. This had lots of delicious salty bacon to complement the eggs.

Next were the entrees: linguini carbonara, steak and eggs, French toast, and a duck and mushroom omelet. While everything was very tasty and the steak was perfectly cooked (rare, the way it should be), my favorite thing was the omelet. It had duck confit, mushrooms, baby spinach, and goat cheese.

And you can't have breakfast for dinner without dessert, so the last thing we had was a chocolate torte with gelato and chocolate sauce. While I noticed that many other food bloggers mentioned they were so full at that point they only took a few bites, I had no trouble eating every last bite of my dessert. What can I say? I have quite a sweet tooth!

Speaking of the other bloggers, I was really happy to catch up with one of my favorites -- Alicia who writes The Clean Plate Club blog.

I also got to visit with Mary Kate (Kitchenbelle), Michelle (Fun and Fearless in Beantown), Shannon (Tri to Cook), and Sues and Chels (We Are Not Martha), as well as meet a whole bunch of other food bloggers like Kerstin of Cake, Batter, and Bowl.

Feel free to check out all of their recaps, which I guarantee have better pictures than mine.

Carrots 'n' Cake
Fun and Fearless in Beantown
Healthy and Sane
Healthy Food For Living
The Clean Plate Club
We Are Not Martha

Eggland's Best sent us home with bags of swag that included an EB umbrella (it was supposed to rain that evening), coupons, a bookmark, an FAQ booklet, a bag of hard-cooked eggs, a Pillsbury cookbook, an EB spatula, and a plush egg.

Someone in my house was very curious about that plush egg.

The hard-cooked eggs are really interesting and convenient but unfortunately aren't available in Massachusetts yet.

A huge thank you to Eggland's Best and Mary Kate for hosting this event and inviting me. Another big thank you to Stella for having us all and feeding us all. I really enjoyed the evening out with other bloggers, the great food Stella provided, and the invaluable information about chickens and eggs. Although, we still don't have the answer to which came first!

For more information, please be sure to check out Eggland's Best's Web site.

Do you buy a particular brand of egg, or do you just buy what's there or what's on sale?

(Logo images provided by Eggland's best)