Sate, Indonesian Style

rabbits for sale - $2US

My friend Helen and I, along with our driver Ferry, took off this morning for a day in Lembang. Lembang is a town maybe 45 minutes – 1 hour north of Bandung and while it isn’t much of a tourist attraction in itself, its proximity to the Tangkuban Prahu volcano makes it along with its surrounding area extremely fertile. Because of that, lots of things are grown there so it’s an interesting place to visit. My ears popped several times as we climbed to the higher elevation and the temperature dropped slightly (temps 62-75 year around). As we neared Lembang, we started seeing tea plantations lining the road. Besides tea, the area is known for its dairy, corn, rambutan (hairy fruits), strawberries, orchids and bonsai trees. I’ll tell you about the tea tomorrow.

sweet little guy just eating his greens

curious about what's in the box

We also began to see small stalls or roadside eateries (I’m using that term loosely) where meat is cooked on bamboo sticks over long trays of open coals. Some of the popular meats that are cooked this way are kelinci (rabbit), kambing (goat), ayam (chicken) and biawak (lizard). Also along the road are numerous stalls selling furry rabbits of different varieties. Ferry tried to reassure me that many are sold for pets ($2US each). But they are also used for food and the road to Lembang is a destination point for those hungry for various types of sate.

all ears

just chillin'

different varieties

someone, please, adopt me!

sate stalls on road to Lembang

skewering up meat for sate

cooking our lunch

well known restaurant where we ate

I hope you won’t quit reading my blog when I tell you that I ate some rabbit today. We normally order chicken sate whenever we eat out, provided it’s not cooked with skin on or worse yet the “all skin/no meat” version that some Indonesians eat. Sate is usually just small bites of white meat chicken served with a very tasty peanut sauce and a side dish of rice – one of the “safest” meals we eat here. Because we were hungry and on a somewhat tight schedule coming back, we decided to go the “authentic” route. No decent restaurants for us today, no siree. We ate sate right on the side of the road just like the locals do. Helen and I ordered ayam (chicken) while Ferry ordered kelinci (rabbit). I traded him a skewer of his rabbit for my chicken, mainly just to say I tried it. And if you’re still reading and are curious, it tasted a bit like chicken (not gamey at all) but the texture was a bit chewier. We ate quickly because it was after 2 pm and we were hungry and also because we wanted to eat it before the flies did! As often when we eat out here, we have to wait until the next day to know for sure whether it was a good idea.

chicken sate (tasted better than it looks)

After uploading the photos of the darling little bunnies on the roadside, I felt a little bad about the whole thing. For some reason, I don’t have the same guilt over eating other meats, but the rabbits – they’re just so sweet and cute. But as Ronnie so often says, “it is what it is.” And besides, I’d prefer to believe what Ferry told me - that most of them get sold as pets.