History - Bali and Lombok - page 32

helped prepare the food. It's community work at its best, sometimes with
hundreds of men pounding meat and spices, chopping vegetables, boiling
coconut milk, frying entrails and making Balinese satay. For my father-
in-law's cremation, our garage became a production-line food hall, with more
than 100 men preparing more than 800 satays and a whole range of other
ceremonial, meaty dishes. Lawar is a celebratory favourite and consists of
roasted shredded coconut, a fragrant coconut-milk broth, cooked greens,
chopped fried liver, a drop of red, glossy, congealed blood, fried entrails,
sambal and just about anything else that is sitting around. As you can
imagine, this is not a dish for the faint-hearted.
WHERE TO EAT & DRINK
Balinese Food
It's everywhere, naturally. Balinese food can be enjoyed fresh from a street
vendor, at world-class restaurants where it is elevated to culinary art, or at
scores of places in between.

the wheels just happen to be the legs of the old granny selling the food. The
table laden with all the cooked treats is carried by the seller to the selected
destination and sold from there. When all is finished, the table, and empty
pots and plates are carried back home. This is usually the best place to buy
delicious rice puddings and sweet treats.
For an afternoon snack or light broth, you might want to sample the
famous cuisine of the bakso or kaki-lima sellers. Kaki-lima translates as
something five-legged and refers to the three legs of the cart and the two
legs of the vendor. These mobile food merchants, usually from neighbouring
Java, push their carts through the village streets in the late afternoon and
sell light soups with bakso (Chinese-style meatballs). Of course, any meat
product that sits in a glass cabinet in tropical heat requires a major dose of
preservatives and probably lashings of MSG so, eat at your own discretion.
Nowadays there is a movement in Bali to serve Balinese-style bakso in
warungs. Signs displaying the words Krama Bali or Bakso Babi indicate they
are serving freshly made bakso, usually with pork meatballs (p29).

White pepper is the
preferred pepper in Asia,
so don't be surprised if
it is hard to find black
pepper in restaurants.

Janet de Neefe's Fragrant
Rice is part memoir,
part cookbook and part
cultural guide. It's a
warm and informative
telling of her deepening
immersion into Balinese
life, framed around
traditional food and the
rich rituals and customs
that surround it.

International Food
You can eat well all over Bali and you are pretty much spoiled for choice.
The classic modest traveller's café with a timeless mix of burgers, pizza, pasta
and Indonesian dishes is found any place you find visitors.
But in places throughout South Bali, Ubud and parts of the east and be-
yond you can enjoy exceptional cuisine from all corners of the globe, often at
prices that would make people at home weep. In particular, look to Seminyak
and Ubud for dozens of innovative restaurants that beguile with choice and
selection.
Most places serve breakfast through to dinner (8am until about 10pm -
later at really trendy joints); in places where everything is fresh and the food
service vendor is the produce market, you'll find kitchens are often very ac-
commodating to special requests. If they have it they'll cook it how you want -
although at times communicating this will be the biggest challenge.
VEGETARIANS
Bali is a dream come true for vegetarians. Tofu and tempe, rich in protein,
can be seen on many restaurant menus, and other wok-fried dishes, such as
cap cay and sayur hijau can easily be ordered without meat. Salads abound
in many modern restaurants, and that old rule of not eating raw foods in
Bali no longer applies.
Vegetarian restaurants will of course be true to their name and there
are many good Indian restaurants that also have vegetarian choices. Most
vegetarian restaurants also cater for vegans, although you might need to
double-check on shrimp paste.
'Aquatarians' (vegetarians who eat seafood) will find eating on the island
full of wonderful choices. Freshly grilled seafood satay is often on sale around
Bali in the afternoons, and seafood features on nearly all menus.
EATING WITH KIDS
Children are treated like deities in Bali and most places have child-doting
staff that will grab yours and entertain them so you can enjoy a bit of quiet
time together. In fact, children often seem as relieved as the parents to have
someone else to play with! Most restaurants are happy to prepare different

WARUNG
In between modern establishments are a million small cafés and local eater-
ies known as warung or kedais (coffee houses). A warung is a small, no-frills
local store-meets-restaurant with a couple of well-worn bench seats and long
tables for hungry guests. A number of cooked dishes usually sit in a small
glass cabinet at the entrance of the warung for all to see, and you can select
from these or just order the house mixture or nasi campur . These roadside
hang-outs are perfect for watching the world go by and are the gathering place
for young and old alike. Seaside warung that hug the coastline serve a variety
of fresh seafood; my favourite eating house, Merta Sari, near the bat caves
in Kusamba (p221), serves up a meal that's hard to beat. Juicy, pounded fish
satay, a slightly sour, fragrant fish broth, fish steamed in banana leaves, snake
beans in a fragrant tomato-peanut sauce and a fire red sambal make up its
renowned nasi campur . Other places around the coast also serve a wonderful
selection of similar dishes but you'll have to hunt them down yourself.
A warung lesehan is a typical type of local eatery that you often find hug-
ging the coastline or out in the villages, although there are also several of these
open-style cafés in Denpasar. These simple above-ground wooden pavilions
are furnished with low tables and bamboo mats where diners sit, sharing the
space with other diners, the occasional tourist and the ubiquitous Balinese
dog. Sometimes they are perched on the edge of the rice fields, offering a
lovely view of ducks and endless green.

Every town of any size
in Bali and on Lombok
will have a pasar malam
(night market). You can
sample a vast range
of fresh offerings from
warung (food stalls) and
carts after dark.

Lonely Planet's World
Food Indonesia by Patrick
Witton has the low-down
on Balinese high feasts
as well as details of the
cuisine for which the
islands are known.

QUICK EATS
In every village in Bali you will find morning and afternoon food stalls or
tables, usually perched under the enormous shade of the local banyan tree.
These makeshift take-away affairs are a bit like meals-on-wheels, except that

BALI & LOMBOK'S TOP FIVE

Bumbu Bali (p138) has superb and creative Balinese food in Tajung Benoa.

Sate Bali (p121) delivers sumptuous traditional Balinese meals in Seminyak.

Three Monkeys (p194) has a diverse menu in a magical Ubud setting.