Ox Tail Soup

Last night while Wid's mom had her arisan (gathering of her housewive friends) at the house, we ran off to the local restaurant near our house for some yummy ox tail soup. When we asked Wid's dad if he wanted any of the soup, he thought for a second and replied yes even though he already had his dinner. The first time I had Indonesian ox tail soup or sop buntu was here a couple years ago during my first visit to Bali. To this day the soup from this small restaurant is still my favorite. The soup has been slow cooked with chopped up ox tail, various spices coloring the soup orange, shallots, and some sort of green leaves (mint or celantro?). It's been cooked for so long that the soup is actually thickened and the meat falls off the bones so easily. To eat the dish, you squeeze a bit of lime juice and add a bit of chili sambal, and then spoon some of the soup over a bowl of rice. Normally we also get the Indonesian salad called gado-gado, but since I'm not very hungry, Wid just ordered a side of fried tofu. Each of us also ordered a nice glass of hot red tea to warm the throat and wash down the food. It's not as awesome as the Kintamani wood stove tea, but it was still nice.

In the end we saved the bones for the doggies (and take a new order of the soup home for Wid's dad). :3