More rice anyone?

I finally had that defining moment in Indonesian life and cultural adaptation: my meal was just not complete without rice.  It was Wednesday after work and a visit to the gym when I decided to try out its first floor restaurant famed for its culinary style.  Now I didn’t know exactly which dish was the famous one so I tried the one that was listed at the top but I didn’t recognize, the “Kondro Bakar.”  The restaurant proprietors told me it was like satay but with beef.  Ok, but they did not mention that the satay skewer stick in this dish was actually a bone with comparably thickness to my wrist.  So I took home the hunk of beef on a bone, smothered in peanut sauce, with a side dish of some sort of broth.  Even though by the time I got home from my workout I was starving, looking at this meal I just could not bring myself to eating it without rice!  I knew it would take half an hour to cook but without the rice the meal just looked so empty, even with this massive side of animal beckoning me.  So I cooked the rice like a good Indonesian and after an excruciating wait, finally got to enjoy the dish; satisfied and thankful I only ordered a half portion.  Usually I am the strange one at office lunches where I don’t finish my heaping pile of nutritionally devoid white rice, but this night saw me cross the divide.  Sometimes, I will admit now, it really does not count as eating if the meal does not include rice.