Honeymoon, Culinary Edition: Eating our way through Bali and the Gilis Islands.

So we’ve been back from Bali for over a month, and I have yet to post the promised ‘Honeymoon Edition 4’.  Looking back at my Spain posts, I realized I did the exact same thing.  Perhaps it’s because my attention span is too short or perhaps it’s because you really don’t want to read four posts on one trip anyways… but you really shouldn’t miss out on the food in Bali, so here is the Culinary Edition!

I would break our culinary experiences down into three categories:

1. Traditional Indonesian
2. Fresh Seafood Grill
3. Americanized Indonesian

Although personally I found the latter  the least appealing, I can see why it would be the go-to for some.  Basically, they make you feel like you’re getting the cultural experience of eating Balinese food, but prepare and serve it in a way that you recognize what you’re putting in your mouth.  Oh, and there is a 50% up charge on food you can recognize.

The traditional Indonesian was most often served in an Ibu: You get a plate of rice and then select what you’d like to top it (or what you think you’d like to top it…. as I said there was often no telling what each dish was).  We found it delicious (although often very spicy) and incredibly cheap.  You could easily get a very, very large lunch for the cost of $2-3 and some really bad heart burn.  Bali is a very vegetarian friendly country.  The tempeh and tofu dishes (very common, as it is much cheaper than any meat there) were often the tastiest.

On our very last day, we had a couple of hours to kill in Bali between returning from the Gilis and catching our flight.  We found a taxi driver, told him it was our last day in Indonesia and to please bring us to somewhere cheap, delicious and authentic.  At one point, when he slipped a man some money to drive through a back alley, we were relatively certain we were being brought off to be sold into slavery.  Luckily we were taken here instead:

Unlike my experience in Europe, breakfast was always a highlight.  The fancy resorts and the homestays alike serve banana pancakes.  They are more crepe-like, doughy and without the flour-induced fluffiness of an American pancake.  It wasn’t until I returned home that Banana Pancake Trail is actually a nickname for the well-beaten path that many backpackers and tourists take through South East Asia.  Jaffles, stuffed sandwiches that resemble a panini with a closed edge, were also common breakfast food.  Both always seem to come with fresh juice, often your choice of watermelon, pineapple, banana, mango… even avocado!

To fully embrace our true tourist nature, we decided to take part in a Balinese cooking class. We start off in the traditional food market, to look not buy.  The movement of the old women with baskets on their heads remind me of the wreckless abandon of our cab driver on the way into Ubud and all of a sudden I know how the wild dogs must feel.  Lara, our guide for the day, gently guides me out of the way.

Our menu for the day is a soup, chicken kabobs, fish patties, green beans and a sticky rice filled dessert pancake.  We start by making two base dishes (base genep and sambai soto), which go into essentially everything and require more chopping than I’ve done in my entire cooking life combined . 

While Lara speaks very good English (and a bit of Dutch, German and Spanish- I imagine her kindness and happy spirit come through in all of them), our head chef, speaks no English.  However, he seems to be able to communicate “smaller” just fine.  Once we’re done chopping, quite sure we have a few blisters, Lara translates that of course in their kitchen, they use a food processor for all of this, but wanted us to do it the ‘authentic’ way.

At some point amidst all the chopping, the chef decided to just start throwing things in without measurements. Specifically, he decided to start adding a lot of oil, hot pepper and salt.  So everything tasted pretty much the same.  Spicy, oily and salty.  We did get to keep the recipe books though, so maybe one day we will recreate at home.

I’ve explained my inert need to try the best or the specialty wherever I am, and Lonely Planet insisted that Bumbu Bali is the best restaurant on the island.  So we make the trek to Benoa to give it a try.  The Rijsttafel, which is essentially a tasting menu, is what’s mentioned, and I love tasting menus so that’s what we go with.  Luckily they are kind enough to warn us that ordering two might not be a good idea (typical overeating Americans that we are, we were prepared to order two of this 17 course meal).  It reminds me a bit of a Balinese Komi and it certainly doesn’t disappoint, nor do the delicious and very potent cocktails.

Johanna