Eating Estonian Brown Bear

After eating kangaroo in Sydney and reindeer in Helsinki, it would take wild boar, elk and Estonian brown bear sausages to top the meat league table.

Emu in Sydney, horse in Ljubljana…

With apologies to all the vegetarians and animal-lovers out there, I have to confess that I am a fully-fledged carnivore. And I take great delight in trying out new meat. Thus I have eaten kangaroo, crocodile and emu in Sydney, Australia, goat and pigeon in the Caribbean, reindeer in Helsinki, Finland and horse in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I regard this as immersing myself in another culture, even though I’m probably just lying to myself on that score.

Olde Hansa Restaurant in Tallinn, Estonia

Therefore, imagine my delight when I saw the menu at the Olde Hansa restaurant in Tallinn, Estonia. This is one of those consummately touristy restaurants that has waiters in novelty costume, is in a renovated medieval building and has absolutely no locals dining there. Usually this is a warning sign for bad food, but this is not the case – it was the best meal I had in my eight days in Finland and Estonia.

Estonian brown bear sausages

The best thing, though was what was on the menu. Wild boar was instantly tempting, but then I saw the goldmine – bear. Now that is an animal I’d never even contemplated eating before, and there was a big roast bear on offer. Eventually I went for the wild boar, elk and Estonian brown bear sausages. After all, that’s three new ones to tick off the list, but bear is easily the most impressive.