The rich array of food found in the rest of Asia is, to many, sadly lacking in Bali. But then again, many who come to Bali don’t experience authentic Balinese cuisine. However, though food plays a central role in Balinese ceremonies and offerings, food is seen more as a staple of life rather than a luxury. This is reflected in the manner in which the daily ration is served, usually portable and often without too much experimentation and choice. Balinese meals tend to be eaten quickly and without fanfare. People simply eat when they are hungry and dining out or in groups is not a normal social convention. Festivals are the major exception, when food is prepared in an elaborate and decorative manner and eaten communally, marking the occasion as something out of the ordinary.
Most of the daily staples center around rice, accompanied by vegetables and a small amount of either fish or meat, with a range of spices and chilies, usually cooked in the early morning, and consumed whenever the need arises. Coconut remains central to Balinese cooking and can be either grated or squeezed to produce cream, or the oil is used for frying. The husks can be used for cooking in an open fire which, when barbecuing fish, can sometimes be an overpowering flavor. Other spices and herbs common to Balinese cooking are ginger, galangel and turmeric, lemongrass, chili, and lime with palm sugar and tamarind to sweeten it all up.
Warungs in Bali and Indonesia are best described as the equivalent of a French cafe. Almost all locals will buy at least one meal a day at their local warung. You should at some stage consider eating at one. The obvious dish to choose is nasi campur, rice with a mix of whatever else has been cooked that day. You go to the counter, where the dishes are on display behind a glass screen, armed with a pointing finger (about the only time pointing is acceptable in Bali), and point out what dishes you want. The options will usually include roasted and/or curried chicken, tempeh, sweet and sour pork, fried fish, various steamed greens, and urap, a pungent, warm salad of steamed vegetables with coconut and spices.
A similar way of serving an array of food is padang style, which originated in Sumatra, where all the dishes for the day are laid out on a table and you help yourself. Hygiene can be an issue here as many customers take from the communal dishes using only their hands and dishes will then be served to subsequent customers. You’ll see the same array of food with side dishes of sambal, but in general the dishes tend to be very spicy. A favorite padang dish is rendang, a spicy stew, usually beef or mutton, slow cooked in coconut and spices until the sauce is almost fully absorbed by the meat.
For more freshly cooked foods, bakso is a soup of noodles and meatballs, served as an anytime snack. Bakwan has spicy wontons. Soto ayam is chicken soup with noodles, topped off with egg, tomatoes, and spices typically for lunch.
The perennial favorite, for when you cannot think of what to eat or just want something simple, is nasi goreng, fried rice with vegetables and chicken and/or prawns. Alternatively, mie goreng has noodles rather than rice as the base. Gado gado is a vegetable salad served with a spicy peanut sauce dressing and usually crispy prawn crackers.
For a snack, there is plenty of choice. Tempeh is crunchy shelled soy beans mixed with a special strain of yeast to form a small flat cake, then fried. Spring rolls, lumpia, are large crispy pastry skins filled with meats and/or vegetables with mild spices then deep fried. Sate (satay) is ubiquitous on the island and makes a great snack. It is made of either chicken, beef, goat (kambing), or fish, which is threaded on bamboo skewers and grilled over coconut husk coals, then usually served with a spicy peanut sauce (saus kacang). Sate lilit is minced meat or fish with spices on lemongrass skewers — possibly the most delicious way of serving sate.
Palm sugar and coconut are the anchors on the sweet side. You will find black sticky rice, bubuh injun, served in hot sticky sauce of palm sugar and coconut cream. Rice flour cakes are popular and at breakfast you may also see Balinese pancakes, which are coconut pancakes dipped in palm sugar. Other dishes use bananas such as godoh or pisang rai, which are fried or steamed bananas, respectively, coated in coconut.
The menu and preparation changes for ceremonies. Much care and attention is given to not only the preparation of food but also the choice of dishes appropriate to serve as offerings to show commitment to communal social obligations. Among those traditionally served are babi guling, bebek betutu, and lawar as they require much preparation; they are usually undertaken by the whole community. At large festivals, you can see whole teams working through the day making the ceremonial dishes.
Babi guling is spit-roasted whole stuffed baby pig presented intact on the table for feasts or banquets. The spicy filling is made of, among other things, chili, turmeric, ginger, galangal, onions, and garlic all basted in coconut oil and a bit more turmeric. Duck, or bebek, is best served as bebek betutu, covered in a spicy paste, wrapped in banana leaf, and slow cooked in pit of embers. Lawar remains one of Bali’s most famous local dishes and, as it must be consumed immediately, is not found in restaurants. Made from pig’s blood and spices, together with an assortment of other goodies, lawar can be found in every village in Bali. The meat distinguishes the type of lawar — chicken, duck, beef, pork, turtle, or even dragonfly but thankfully turtles are now rarely used.
Fresh young coconut milk is refreshing and healthy. Drill a hole, drink the juice, then scrape the juicy coconut flesh from the inside of the shell. A variety of drinks are based on young coconut (kelapa muda). Es campur is somewhere between a drink and a dessert — shaved ice topped with sweet condensed milk and a variety of agar-agar based jellies. Similar is es buah, which has chopped fresh fruit. Es rumput laut adds locally harvested seaweed.
Fresh juices (jus aneka buah) are available everywhere. Fresh lime juice (jus jeruk nipis) is a good thirst quencher, as is fresh watermelon (semangka) or orange juice (jus jeruk), sometimes confusingly made from tangerines, which tastes even better. When ordering, make sure you ask for any sugar to be served on the side. Many times you will ask for a fresh fruit juice only for it to be loaded with extra sugar.
You will find many places selling Bali kopi (coffee) and it is normally wonderful. Generally, Balinese coffee is processed using the wet method, which results in a sweet, soft coffee with good consistency. However, while the coffee is good here, the way it is served and presented can leave a little to be desired. For some reason they seem to overpowder and then underfilter the coffee, leaving large dollops of ground coffee in your mug.
Beer, Wine & Moonshine — Bali sits outside the normal ways of the rest of the Muslim-dominated country and therefore alcohol, though expensive, is accessible. Imported wines and spirits tend to be expensive, as import duties are on a value basis which was raised to 300% in 2008.
The locally produced wines are Hatten and Wine of the Gods, with white, red, and rose varieties, from grapes grown in Bali. There is also Two Islands, red and white wines, made from Australian grapes imported as grape juice and then fermented and bottled here. The roses with plenty of ice are perfectly drinkable, the rest are more an acquired taste.
Rijsttafel is an Indonesian feast, described as the “Crown Jewel of Indonesian Cuisine” and is translated from the Dutch as “rice table.” Up to 40 dishes are served in small proportions and accompanied by rice. It originated in colonial times when the Dutch felt they needed a banquet that represented the multi-ethnic nature of the East Indies archipelago. Popular dishes include egg rolls, gado gado, sambal, and pickles, satay of all types, fish, fruit, vegetables, and nuts enhanced by coriander, basil, bay leaves, cardamom, galangal, and lemongrass.
