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Bali: Eat, Drink, Repeat

Explore Bali through its cuisine, eating at night markets, food carts and restaurants that only locals will know

Bali is an island and province of Indonesia, famous for its pristine beaches

Bali is a food-lover’s dream. And, though I am not a traveller, I will brave all sorts of stomach-churning expeditions in the promise of a great meal and new culinary traditions.

Balinese cuisine can be novel, yet familiar to Indians. Sambal, with its mix of chilli, shallots and galangal, ginger, lemongrass and garlic, is full of familiar elements. But the delicate flavour of galangal will catch you off-guard, and the crunch of fresh sambal repackages household ingredients with new textures.

Bali is a great destination to sample new kinds of food, even try your hand at cooking some. We experimented with goose foot, pig’s ear and piles of scampi. It’s where we learned to steam chicken in a banana leaf and properly skewer fish on a satay stick. It’s also where we fell in love with mangosteen and tore at crispy duck with our fingers.

The delicious mangosteen is native to the islands of Indonesia
The delicious mangosteen is native to the islands of Indonesia

Night markets are a great place to begin your culinary adventures. While Bali is tourist-friendly, with romantic restaurants and cafes that serve cuisines from global culture, experiencing authentic Balinese cuisine demands that you get off the streets. Barren fields by day, the night markets come to life after sunset with stalls, carts and grills cooking a whole array of food, both traditional and modern. Sticky skewers of satay, endless plates of steaming hot mie goreng (noodles with veggies and meat, topped with a wobbly fried egg), and a long snaking queue at the single pancake counter where a woman and her husband toss up more than a hundred toppings, including cheese, butter, chocolate, peanut butter and condensed milk.

Warungs, tiny shacks or mobile carts, are where locals get their daily meals. Bebek batutu – slow-cooked duck in banana leaf, tender and plump; nasi campur – rice with chopped veggies, chicken and a fried egg; or a hot super-spicy bakso – a bowl of noodle soup with finely diced veggies, meatballs, fresh herbs and chilli sauce, is warming and delicious and will have you tearing up from the heat.

But if you must eat at a restaurant, Bebek Bengil, or the Dirty Duck Diner, is definitely worth a pit stop – or even a long detour. Their signature dish, crispy duck, is tender and juicy under a layer of crisp skin, and served with a side of fresh salad. It is greasy, fresh, soft and crisp all at once.

Crispy duck at Bebek Bengil.
Crispy duck at Bebek Bengil.

Our host in Ubud suggested a meal Warung Igelanca and it turned out to be one of the highlights of our food adventures in Bali, giving us more than just a meal, offering a real sense of the island, its people, culture and comfort food.

A woman sells fruits and temple offerings in the Pasar Badung market
A woman sells fruits and temple offerings in the Pasar Badung market

A culinary tour is another great way to experience Bali, its local produce, markets and cuisine. From learning how to plant rice, milk a cow, catch fish, cook on an open fire, or make cashew wine, it takes you through a day in the life of an ordinary Balinese. Bali Asli in east Bali is a stunning location that hosts experiences in Balinese culture and cuisine. But if that’s too far off your trail, many hotels will customize one for you. The Anantara Hotel in Seminyak invited us on a culinary journey with Chef Sweeti and Nova, who embody Bali’s legendary hospitality and warmth. We began with a walk through Pasang Badur market in Denpasar, Bali’s oldest traditional market. Also the largest wholesale market, it is open 24 hours a day, and remarkably, is run almost entirely by women. The market houses everything from fruits, flowers and vegetables, to meats, cakes and spices. The Balinese spend a considerable part of their day offering prayers at the temple; a ritual that is an inextricable part of their lives, central to daily activities. The Pasar Badung market has several stalls dedicated to temple offerings of flowers, cakes, and crackers for each hour of prayer.

A natural paradise for fruit, Bali has an incredible variety of flavour and colour to choose from. We sampled fresh, sweet strawberries from farms nearby, mangosteen, oranges and gorgeous, fragrant kaffir limes. There are also bananas, passion fruit, scaly pink dragon fruit, big yellow lemons, pineapple, soft green pears and assorted melons to pick through.

The array of fresh vegetables, leafy greens and red-hot chillies are a feast for the senses – shiny tomatoes, long stalks of chives and spring onion, radish and beets, galangal and ginger, fat pumpkins, bright orange carrots, and violently red chillies. We nearly tripped over a basket of fragrant mushrooms, soft and buttery to the touch. Lotus flower and stems for special celebratory preparation, and a whole variety of eggs – chicken, duck and quail, buried and baked in sand. The spice market on the first floor is aromatic and heady, reaching out to you with the flavours of cinnamon, betel nut and dried fish before you even enter.

A bag of hot chillies in the Pasar Badung market
A bag of hot chillies in the Pasar Badung market

The meat section is quite another experience. Baskets full of chicken feet, pig trotters and frog legs vie for space as customers bargain noisily. Rolls of pork sausage are torn off and sold. A woman takes a break from chopping meat and sits down on a stool while another gives her a quick shoulder rub. The assortment of seafood is incredible – fish eggs, oyster, clams, squid, lobster, shrimp, mussels, crab. A disembodied eye stares at me from a tray. I hurry to the next stall, where Sweeti and Nova are packing traditional Balinese sweets in banana leaf. A woman dollops an assortment of brightly coloured items into a leaf, drizzles it with honey, and deftly wraps it all together with twine.

Back in the car, we headed to the Domba Coffee factory. Coffee in Indonesia is a religious experience, revered with as much ritual and ceremony as temple prayer. Knowing your coffee and how to drink it is paramount. Coffee is categorized into male and female – male is whole-bean coffee and tends to be stronger in aroma and flavour, while female coffee is lighter and flatter, made of broken bean. (I couldn’t help feeling they got the categorization of sexes backward). Female coffee is normally served at coffee shops and restaurants, since male coffee is priced considerably higher. And towering over both these varieties is Kopi Luwak – Kopi meaning coffee and Luwak, the wild Asian Palm Civet, Indonesia’s national animal. Kopi Luwak is male coffee, made from coffee cherries that have been passed through the digestive tract of the wild Asian Palm Civet, and is considered one of the world's finest coffees. Kopi Luwak in the Domba factory is collected from the poop of the wild palm civet (as opposed to farmed civets, considered inferior). The beans are given a special roast, so not to destroy the complex flavours that develop with the enzymes in the civet cat’s digestive tract. It has a strong, nutty flavour and aroma, credited to the Civet Cat's particular knack of selecting only the best cherries. Kopi Luwak is priced at a whopping USD 3,000 per kilogram.

Kopi Luwak brewed by the beach
Kopi Luwak brewed by the beach

Carrying bags full of goodies from the market and the coffee factory, we head back to Anantara for our cooking lesson with Chef Sweeti. On the beachfront, under a couple of umbrellas beside Bali’s bright blue sea, a cooking station is prepped and ready. Heeding her instruction we cooked up a simple three-course meal of traditional Balinese food, beginning with fish satay. Fish satay is harder than it looks. My husband found his groove with the fish mince and satay sticks quicker than I did, molding the meat and gently sliding it on to the skewers.

Ayam Betutu, a traditional Balinese farmer’s meal, uses fresh herbs like galangal, ginger and lemongrass to flavour a piece of chicken, rubbed with spices and slow-steamed in a banana leaf. Unwrapping the leaf once it cooks releases a headful of delicious aroma.

Ayam Betutu, chicken encased in spices and steamed in a banana leaf
Ayam Betutu, chicken encased in spices and steamed in a banana leaf

The chicken is succulent and tender, its juices and the flavour of herbs mingling to create a spicy, comforting gravy. And, finally, a dessert that is close to home. Sliced bananas tossed in batter and deep-fried, are plated with strawberries and a sprig of mint before generously topping with a drizzle of thick palm sugar. Hot, gooey bananas, puffing steam through their crisp battered coats and the chill of ice cream beside the sunny blue sea made a perfect end to our meal.

After that meal we were good for little else but a long foot massage in the bustle of the busy Seminyak streets.

Editor’s Note: The writer’s culinary experience was hosted by Anantara Resorts and Spa in collaboration with Thomas Cook India. You can book personalized culinary tours of Bali here.

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