The version(s) of jQuery affected / Information on other jQuery versions tested, including whether or not the issue is reproducible there:

Same results in jQuery 1.6.4 & 1.7.1

The browser (or browsers) that you are able to reproduce the bug in, including version numbers / Information on other browsers where the issue does not occur:

Doesn't work in: Android 2.3.4

Works fine in: Chrome 16 (desktop)

Step-by-step instructions on how to reproduce the issue, including any required system configuration changes / A link to a reduced, working demo/test case that will never move (jsFiddle is good for this):

http://jsfiddle.net/cjblomqvist/RzhAW/

A description of what you expect to happen, and what actually happens:

The popup/alert message is supposed to show exactly the same text on both sides of the === (which it does in Chrome 16), but instead in Android 2.3.4 the element is stripped on the only the text-node inside the option-element is shown on the left side (hence, I'd guess it's removed when accessing the .html() or when converted from string to jQuery element)