Balinese Food

Day 1 : Dinner at Jimbaran

Like any other tour guide, ours is the same. We weren't really given a choice, he just drop us off at one of the many seafood restaurant down the Jimbaran stretch. So, there isn't any chance to check which restaurant offers a better deal. However, he assured us that its value for money and the food is good.

The restaurant :
JIMBARAN BAY SEAFOOD - BUMBU BALI

The food :

(Our dose of fibre - the Seafood Set dinner comes with a serving of KangKung, your choice of beer, tea, or cola. But the catch is, even though the set it meant for 2 person, each set ordered, is only entitled to 1 drink)

(Our seafood set : Comes with fat clams, a serving of tasty calamari seasoned to perfection, grilled prawns, and in the center, its grilled fish)

(As we shared the mean among 3 person, we ordered an extra serving of King Prawns....on for each of us. The total cost for the King Prawn came up to Rp210,000 or approximately RM78)

The seafood set that we ordered set us back by Rp275,000, i,e about RM104. So in total, we each forked out RM60 ++ each. Excluding extra charges for drinks.

There are other Seafood sets that comes with Lobsters and King Prawns, with price ranging from Rp375,000 to Rp 425,000 (RM140 - Rm160), so if you share between 2 pax, it'll be about RM70 - RM80 per pax.

I would say that its cheap by Malaysian standard, coz the seafood are really fresh. All sets comes with unlimited serving of rice. However, the above prices are excluding service tax.

All in all, I would say that our guide didn't bring us to a slaughter house. The food is good, the ambience is excellent (minus the mosquitoes), and it comes with live band serenading songs like oldies, and they even do some songs by Maroon 5.

Day 2 : Lunch at Nusa Dua

Supposedly a haven for water sport, but we just came back from a back-to-back snorkeling adventure at Pulau Perhentian, whom I believe have nicer corals and more species of fishies. No point doing snorkeling in Nusa Dua. Plus, I'm still suffering from sun burn, and not in the mood to do any of those Parasailing, jet ski, etc...

We settled for a cruise in Glass bottom boat and a visit to Turtle Island. Proved to be a con job that cost Rp200,000 per pax (RM75/pax). Photos posted at Facebook, so go check it out at Bali Ole Bali album

Disappointed with the stupid cruise, we headed out to the streets of Nusa Dua and randomly picked one of the restaurant for lunch. Now, our guide, a Mr. Nyoman (a typical name for most Balinese that's 2nd born)say we can choose any restaurant, and we happened to choose a Warung Nyoman!!

Our lunch :

(A refreshing watermelon juice to quench the thirst - Rp13,500 or RM5)

(Ayam Bertutu - A rendang like chicken dish, the sauce is rather dry, with a strong taste of kunyit and lemongrass. Goes very well with the rice, though it can do better with more gravy and a tad bit more salt - Rp49,000 or RM18)

(This is what I ate. Ayam Panggang Borobudur. Very much like Teriyaki Chicken...the sauce is sticky and thick, and sweetish. Goes very well with the rice. - Rp43,000 or RM16)



(Black Pepper Chicken - turned out to be a stir fry chicken slices with green pepper. More like Chinese style than Balinese. Rp45,000 or RM17, my sister ordered Ice Lemon Tea, which is laden with a too-generous dose of glucose)

Overall, its a little on the pricey side, coz the food is not exactly spectacular. Ambience from the restaurant is good though, service is very good (it can't be bad, coz we are the only guests then), but it did take them a long long time to get the food cook, which we noted that its the norm in most of Bali's eateries.

(My sisters posing outside the restaurant, and the next photo, is the dining area in the garden. )

Warung Nyoman
Jln Pratama 66X Terora Tanjung Benoa, Nusa Dua, Bali.
Tel : 62(361)778677
(No Aircond, choice of open air or sheltered dining.)

Dinner at Warung Made, Kuta

Most will visit Warung Made, for clean and fuss-free dining. The restaurant was in existence since 1969, and they even have a website of their own - Made Warung.

Everytime we pass through the restaurant, its packed to the brink. And with our entourage of 9, we are lucky that the staff manage to find us a table at the upper deck of the restaurant.

(View from the top....the restaurant is ventilated with high ceiling fans. Its really quite warm, but bouts of sea breeze helped to cool us down)

Honestly, if the Balinese food here is the real deal, I'll say there's really nothing special about Balinese food. We can do better back in KL. But overall, we like the ambience and are happy with the food that we ordered from their Indonesian and Balinese Food Menu, and the girls are crazy about their fruit juices. Priced at Rp15,000 (about RM6 to 7), its really a steal coz its pure juice, with no added sugar.....the texture is so thick that you'll think you are drinking a Slurpee made from fresh fruits.

In fact we went back to Made for dinner on our 3rd night, to try out their Western food menu.

Food @ Made Warung :

(Spicy Pork Sate - the meat is tender and succulent, plus the sate is marinated to perfection. )

(Ribs in Young Papaya - a dish served with rice. A little bland in taste...)

(Nasi Campur ala Made - rice with Sate Lilit, tempeh, kangkung, prawns, some curry wiht pork, and shredded omelette, with some pickles)

(Nasi Goreng ala Made -slightly spicy, but if you plan to numb your tongue, you can be adventurous and try the chilli sauce on the side. Very tasty.)

Western fare at Made Warung :

(Snapper with garlic sauce - very fresh, just that the accompanying vege on the side are too raw for my liking)

(Served with rice, above is their version of sweet and sour fish fillet)

(Roast chicken, with servings of roast potatoes and salad. )

(A slice of blackforest cake - not bad)

Food from the foodcourt at Jln Pantai Kuta :

Our last day in Kuta and we are due to leave for the airport in 2 hours time. We ended having lunch at the food court near our hotel. Seeing Bebek Bengil (Crispy Duck) and Babi Guling on the menu, we ordered them anyway - even though we know the real deal for these delicacies can't be found in Kuta.

(Crispy Duck - very tasty)

(Sate Babi - this time, they served it with some thick teriyaki sauce with a tinge of spiciness)

(Babi Guling - supposedly suckling pig, but they served it chopped in smaller portion. I think suckling pig from El-cerdo, the likes of Roasted Pork Cheeks from Chiaroscuro, and any suckling pig from Chinese restaurant will do better than Babi Guling)


PHew!! That's about it......

Actions...camera..lights...Are we Nuts?

One will wonder, what kind of Malaysians are we?
On our Perhentian trip, we met some foreigners (not sure where they are from) and some Chinese that flew to Perhentian from Shanghai.

On our first night at Cocohut Resort, we hijacked one of the table at the dining area, and start to play a card game. Penalty - drink! There's about 10 of us, so its only logic to get a big pitcher full of drink...so that it'll be enuff to go around. Rite???
So, we borrowed this big pitcher from the kitchen....prolly about 2 litre worth and start our game.

We drank and laugh with merriment.

Now, if you've visited Pulau Perhentian before, you'll know that the island reside somewhere between Terengganu and Kelantan, where most of the inhabitants are Muslim. And Muslim don't drink....kekeke....The only kind of alcohol that they sell in Cocohut are canned beers, and stock are scarced.

The group of foreigners (i presumed from Europe), were looking at us....wondering, where in the world did we get pitcher after pitcher of alcohol....coz the more we play, the merrier we get. Finally, one of them pop their head over, and ask Verinder... "What are you guys playing? and what is it that you guys are drinking?"

Cute lil Verinder gave her a smile and say " OH, its just water...."

........


YUP...the lady turn her head, mutter some words in a funny language (maybe they are Swede?), and everyone sorta had a look of disbelief...and shake their head.

Yeah, we really play the card game with water.....plain water.
LoL.....

Who say you need alcohol to have fun?

And I supposed the foreigners thought we are NUTS...

After the game, I went back to my room to rest...it had been a long day. But some of the monkeys, had more fun :

We gather, we stopped and we waited @ the Perhentian (Part 2)

THE ARRIVAL ...

(Arrival of all the monkeys from Sunway.....breaking the peacefulness of the serene Perhentian Island ? Nah....we bring fun and cheerfulness , wherever we go *wink*)

(Always ready for photo.......some of the monkeys getting their group mug shot at the resort/chalet)

(Aerial view...of the mighty male apes....that helped carried luggages to our so called Deluxe Chalet , which really meant wooden double story hut...look like long houses, plus all of us have to stay at the upper deck)

(Despite the disappointment on our so-called Deluxe accomodation, we are still cheerful as ever....coz its lunch time!!!! )

(2 specimen of beings, coated with sunblock. Obviously I didn't put enuff sun-blocked, coz now I have brown skin.....and Christine maintain her fair and lovely skintone. Moral of the story : Slap on as much sunblock, layer it.....and you might avoid getting 2-3 tone darker)

The beach at Pulau Perhentian. Those are the monkeys that went for the snorkelling trip on Day 1.

(Speed boat ride to snorkeling spots in Pulau Perhentian)

(All ready to get into the speedboat.......)


THE ADVENTURE BEGINS :

(Kah Leng and JJ in da water...together...erm..i think tat's Yin Mei and Sen Shih)

(Hmm....smacking yourself in the eye...is not something you'll want to try at sea)

(Corals....thanks to Christine's Waterproof Olympus....we've got beautiful underwater pictures)

(The fishes in Perhentian Island are obviously very disturbed by the noisy bunch of monkeys....)


(Not really sure what Nicholas is trying to do.....to see the fish or to scare them off... :) , but this is really a good shot!!)

(more posing.....)

(hehee...the pretty girls at sea....erm, and JS)

(Tat's tze hoe swimming......can u hear Sebastian (from lil' mermaid) singing?? Under the sea...under the sea...la la la )

(Contrary to popular belief, these monkeys are not thrown off the boat...they are just trying out the float that they borrowed from the resort...kekekeek)

(This is just an optical illusion, he's not really trying to pinch the fishies)

(A shy lil' clown fish peeping from the corals....)

(Yi Ven's attempt to dive....with her float ? haha...nah, she's just trying to get a better look at the corals)

(Mr. KSS ......posing under water...tsk tsk)

THE AFTERMATHS :

After the tiring snorkel around Perhentian Island, we have quite a few casualty. Melissa came back halfway due to seasickness, together with Shane who's suffering from sunstroke , both escorted by Nicholas , who braved a few scratches from the corals. JS came back with a bloody gash on his ankle, Suh Fan have a few nasty blisters on her feet and Yi Ven is so pretty that she attracts jelly fish attack on both snorkelling trip to Perhentian and Redang. But nothing seriuos, just some cuts and gashes.....some developed rashes (Shin Yin), but everyone went home in one piece. :)

(Tired , they finished 2 plates of crinkle fries and drink up some 100+, Sen Shih looks like he's going to fall asleep soon)

(Obviously they are not that tired....hehehe....all still manage to pose for photos....)

(At the dinner table......)

(Last shot of photos??? before we head back to our chalet?? Nah...since when you see the Sunway monkeys go to sleep so early??)

Next blog on the nocturnal activities that Sunway Monkeys indulges in.....kekekekekeke