Edible Art

I thought I'd try my hand as a food critic and write an entry on Balinese cuisine. The food in Bali is excellent. At most restaurants in the Ubud area you can get an assortment of Chinese, Italian or Western dishes, all of course with an Indonesian flair. But by far the most interesting and tastiest are the truly Indonesian dishes. Everything from the simplest gado-gado and nasi campur are artistically presented on a hand-cut banana leaf, a sprig of green as accent. Even the nasi putih, plain steamed rice, is presented in a perfect mound with toasted coconut shreds on top.

Rice growing is labor intensive. It starts with a bare, dry, harvested field. The remaining stalks from the previous harvest are burned off and the field is repeatedly soaked and plowed to reduce it to the right consistency of mud. Although some farmers use mechanical machines for this job, many still use the traditional method of two cattle pulling a wooden plough. Once muddy enough, a small corner of the field is walled off and rice seedlings are planted there. When the seedlings have grown to a reasonable size, they are re-planted by hand, shoot by shoot, into the larger field and left to mature. The total time between planting and harvest is four months. Rice growing is strictly a male occupation but often the whole village will turn out for the manual task of harvesting the grains. after the harvest, if they always had new rice growing the harvest would always be about to take place and no sacrifice would be necessary. Since that time the Balinese have always started one crop of rice before harvesting another.

On every plate you will find something made of rice. If it isn't a steaming mound of nasi putih then it will be fried rice, rice noodles, krupuk (prawn crackers), sweat brown rice or green sticky rice balls filled with a sweet syrup. Of course you can always order a round of rice wine if you haven't had enough rice already.

Fruits and vegetables can fill you up between rice meals. The variety here is endless and unique and road side stalls sell them all. Among those I have sampled are: rambutans - bright red fruit covered in soft hairy spines whose meat is white and plum-like in flavor; jackfruit - an enormous yellow-green fruit that can weigh over 20 kg. containing hundreds of bright yellow segments; blimbing or starfruit; papayas; salaks which, when cracked open, look like a walnut and taste like a tart pear, and a wide variety of pisang or bananas. One particularly good pisang has a slightly pink meat and is sweeter than a western banana. One fruit I haven't tried is the Durang (the smell alone is reason enough).

If you want a sit down meal, that's easy too. There are plenty of restaurants to choose from. I've found that the best food can often be found a the cheapest of local warungs. Their peanut sauces are spicier, their spices are fresher and their presentation is as good or better than pricier places. But no restaurant in Bali can really be considered pricey. Dinner for two at Sehati-II Restaurant came to 5400 RP, roughly US$2.40. The most expensive meal we had was at Ayr's Warung , approximately US$9.00.

One of my favorite restaurants is Cafe Bali, set in the center of a rice paddy just off the main Monkey Forest Road. The view is spectacular and the atmosphere is almost trance-like with the haunting Indonesian gamalian music and soft lighting. As with most restaurants here, the waitress stood at our table after presenting the menu and waited for our orders. Once we'd made our selections the typical thank-yous were exchanged and we were treated to excellent service and excellent food prepared with all the care and precision of a work of art. The final bill for our dinners, fresh fruit drinks (papaya, orange and carrot), and chocolate-raisin cake came to US$4.60.

Another find just today was a small vegetarian warung tucked behind a glass display of carved bone pendants and sun-bleached batik clothing. The way-say (toilet) wasn't as clean as in the more expensive restaurants and the tablecloth had a few more spots, but the meal was four star and once again every dish was a masterpiece.

We ate tonight at the Kokokan Club, a five minute walk from our bungalow. We chose it because it was close and we were too tired to make the 2 km walk into Ubud. We were so pleasantly surprised that we'll go back again (and perhaps yet again).

The dining room of this elegant restaurant is lit by the soft glow of lamps hidden behind palm leaves and a candle decorating each table. The tables are made of cream marble and the place settings of rattan mats and linen napkins are immaculate. From the center of the giant open dining room hangs an enormous chandelier.

The meal and the service here was on par with one of Boston's finest. When I made a slight change to add tofu to my entree, the waiter presented me with a plate of smoked tofu or soft tofu to chose from. My drink of fresh mixed tropical fruits was delicious and John's ginger ale was poured for him as if it were a fine, expensive wine. My entree of smoked white eggplant with sesame seeds and tofu and John's of Pad Thai were incredible. They both came on plates rimmed with decorative cut radish that I initially mistook for a fancy china pattern. Our steamed rice was dished out by the waiter from a rattan basket and halfway through the meal he asked if we would like more.

Normally for a restaurant with such service and food I would be better dressed. Being in khaki pants, a long sleeve T-shirt and hiking boots didn't seem to fit the mood. John shoved his backpack as far under the table as he could. In sharp contrast a woman gracefully waltzed in wearing flowing embroidered white linen. She looked like her name might be Madame Fi-Fi with the way her cigarette dripped from her fingers that barely seemed to touch it and the way it never interfered with the punching of the keys on her cellular phone. Well, she may have been better dressed but I bet when she walks into a craft shop she doesn't get the "best for you, best for me, morning price".

We lingered over our drinks for a while after eating. We doubted that we would be eating this well in the future and we wanted to absorb as much of the ambience as possible. When finally we asked for the bill, we were once again amazed at Balinese prices; a meal akin to a Boston five-star for the price of a lunch of veggie-burgers and fries at the Burlington Mall Food Court. The total came to 21,000 RP (less than US$10).

For all you folks back home, next time you go to the mall for lunch, think of us. We'd send a doggy-bag if we could.