Food, Glorious Food (and some - not quite so glorious)

During each of my 3 stays in Bali I’ve eaten widely and sampled many local dishes.  Some have been the “grand” foods in the sense of being served on special occasions or in special places.  Most have been simple dishes.  Sometimes, but not often, I made a bad or just funny choice – but lived to tell the tale, and laugh about it.

Every day foods

In the evening the small food vendors come out along Dalung Permai and take up their positions in clearings and in front of shops, just a few minutes walk from campus.  Grilled corn is popular.   Usually it is not as sweet as the corn I’m used to.

Dalung corn seller

Against the wall beside the busy road is the man flame-grilling fish. I captured him on a quiet night – sometimes the flame is 2 metres high! The basted grilled fish is just delicious and it’s hard to walk past and ignore the aromas.

Just 1 minute from the campus gate is Warung Bali. A “warung” is a small food “store” – sometimes but rarely as grand as a “cafe” and sometimes nothing more a serving area under a tarpaulin with a few stools for customers.   Warung Bali is small, friendly and has just 4 items on the menu on the front post.  This is “fu yung hai”, a vegetable omelette with sweet chilli sauce, served with a plate of boiled rice.  I have enjoyed many of these meals.

"Fu yung hai" at Warung Bali

This arrangement gives new meaning to “fan forced cooking”.  Everywhere small street vendors have little stalls with a metal tray of coals to grill the sate.  Some fan the coals by hand, some use a small battery powered fan aligned with the grill, and others ……  well, “that’s not a fan, THIS is a fan!” 

It doesn't just use a domestic fan but also incorporates an industrial blower to provide turbocharged grilling for the steady stream of “sate kambing” (goat sate, as Muslims don’t eat the more usual pork sate found everywhere in Bali).  Unless eaten as a snack straight from the coals, sate Kambing is usually served with a small bowl of “gule”, a thin broth with chunks of (goat) meat which is spooned over the plain rice to flavour it.  It’s quite tasty.

The next plate wont win any awards for presentation or imagination.  It’s yesterday’s lunch in the small student canteen - “nasi campur” (rice with a “mix” of things.  The rice provides the bulk of the meal and the customer chooses from whatever is available on the day – some crumbed chicken, corn cakes, fried tempe (matured soy), beans with spice (perhaps a bit too much yesterday) and something I mistook for something else but which turned out to be fried chicken liver complete with a kidney attached.  Hmm, “rubbery” and I’m not mispronouncing “lovely”!  Still, cheap and reasonably satisfying, if somewhat monotonous.

Special places and occasions

This brings back pleasant memories of an evening cooking class hosted by Wayan (right of picture) and his wife Puspa in the family compound in the hills to the north of Ubud, Bali.  (Paon-Bali Cooking Classes)

Here Wayan and his assistant are hand fanning and turning the Balinese style sate.  The meat is pounded with a blend of spices into a soft coarse paste which is moulded onto flat sate sticks (it won’t stick to the normal thin round sticks).  At right of frame is the hearth of a Balinese kitchen with typical “kitchen appliances”.

At a dinner on campus last week the spit roasted “Babi Guling” was the delicious highlight of the Balinese meal.  There is regional variation in spices and preparation, and many would say that the area around Gianyar produces the best dishes.

And speaking of the regency of Gianyar, here is another regional favourite – flame grilled chicken.  The small birds are partly deboned, flattened, basted and grilled in wire racks over coals.  They are displayed and sold on the skewers.  I do find the little head tends to dampen my enjoyment.

Food …. memories.  Last year in Ubud Judy and I enjoyed a wonderful meal in an open-sided restaurant with a rice field on one side and a lotus pond on another.  It was a picture postcard setting.  The house specialty that evening was “bebek” - spiced and roasted local duck.  What a treat.  What a memory.

The next picture is about technique.  You can’t see the food, so take my word that it was delicious.  Here whole fish from the pond at the Warung Mina (in eastern Bali) are seasoned, wrapped in layers of a papery bark and banana leaf and then baked over coals.  The fish partly bakes and partly steams producing wonderful flavours and textures.

An unusual menu item

Last year at the strangely named “Black Jack” cafe we enjoyed a meal with a student friend (he and Judy are in the background of the picture).  On the menu for dessert (or afters) were fruit flavoured hookahs.  I’ve seen this at several places including cafes on the beach at upmarket Seminyak.

 

A happy hookah

The non-tobacco water pipes can be enjoyed in a variety of flavours – strawberry, cola, bubble gum,  chocolate, peach, mint cappuccino and more.  This patron looked like he had enjoyed more than a bit of bubble gum bliss – definitely a happy hookah.

My mistake and spelling errors

Read the fine print - it's porridge, not spices.

I keep a couple of packets of “mie goreng” (2 minute fried noodles) on hand as a quick emergency meal.  They are usually chicken flavoured, so when I spotted the packet with “fish flavours” I thought I’d try the new taste.  I was in a hurry and mistakenly read “bubur” as “bumbu” (spices).  At my room I eagerly opened the packet, poured the contents into my bowl, and found I’d bought fish flavoured porridge.  As a “once off” it wasn’t too bad, but I’ll stick to “once off”.

Chilly sardines!

Watch out – the cold sardines are really quite hot (chilli).  The shop assistants look on in amusement, no doubt wondering why a tin of sardines was of such interest.

I always try to carry at least my pocket camera, but it seems the most interesting food items or meals come when I’m not equipped, so they don’t get photographed. I’ll look for other delicacies and post news of them later.

For the finale, here I am displaying my "food credentials".

Looking like (non-identical)twins in our "loud Friday" college shirt
Chef Eko and I display our credentials at a food fair. Not an
 International Man of Mystery, but "International Food Tester".

Last year Judy and I accompanied college students to Kintamani where they took part in the fruit carving contest which was part of a local food fair.  Judy and I were later roped in to sample some delicious food prepared from local ingredients by top chefs and then offer comments. - something a bit more significant than "oh wow, that's HOT!"  As a reward for my contribution I was offered a certificate and when asked for credentials I jokingly replied “International Food Taster”. “international” – yes, and I was tasting food.  Well the “taster” was heard as “tester”, so there on the certificate is my recognition as “International Food Tester”.  Foodies - eat your heart out!