For the first time since Turkey, Emily hasn’t been particularly enthusiastic about the local cuisine. After India and Thailand, Bali’s a giant tumble down the spicy-o-meter.
For Emily who likes her food so hot it makes her cry, Thailand was a hard act to follow. After all, Thailand was the first place she had to actually ask for fewer chilies in her food. That brush with passing out over a plate of som tam (green papaya salad) had her picking pieces of chili out of her food after that.
When it comes to the art of setting your mouth on fire and causing your face to flush, Bali doesn’t even throw its hat in the ring. For those who need a little kick to their food, the Balinese have sambal – a chili sauce that’s has a sweet overtone to the spice. In fact, Emily’s biggest problem is that Balinese food leans to the sweet side.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t be happier with the food. The Balinese predilection for coconut milk curries and coconut grated into several traditional vegetable dishes works just fine for me as does their skillful use of peanut sauce so tasty it shames Thailand.
More importantly, the Balinese are all about fresh, flavorful food. With the exception of a few imported items they don’t produce here – cheese, butter, steak…things outside their cuisine – everything is locally grown or raised. I have never had better tasting fruits and vegetables than here in Bali.
Why? The rich, fertile soil of Bali deserves a lot of credit. However, the fact that produce is brought down from the volcano regions everyday and sold fresh in the local markets every morning is just as important.
Food in Bali isn’t designed to have a shelf life. Canned and frozen food isn’t at all a part of Balinese cooking. Even most of the spices are produced either on the island or in the other islands of Indonesia.
The local cuisine emphasizes the natural flavors of the ingredients and the aromatic – not hot – spices of the region. Clove, turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, saffron…all the flavors that turned Europe upside down when they first made their way from East to West.
The East Indies were central to the spice trade and even more so to coffee production – which remains to this day. Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi – it’s Starbucks geography. Bali coffee, however isn’t at Starbucks because tiny Bali just can’t produce enough for mass-export.
It is all over the place here, where visitors and locals alike live into its deep, rich, bold flavor that lacks any hint of bitterness. Balinese grind their coffee into a fine powder that requires no filtering. Grounds fall to the bottom of the cup or pot like silt, making Bali coffee a powerful and addictive drink.
For me, the real addiction is how good I feel eating here. We have tons of fresh fruit and juices. Our dinners center around the amazing, flavorful Balinese vegetable dishes like lawar which combines finely chopped long-beans, grated coconut, black eyed peas, garlic, onion and bean sprouts; and cap cay (said chop chai) – a mix of chopped fresh baby bok choi, garlic, carrots, cauliflower, and some other local green I can’t identify sauteed in a light chicken stock.
Restaurants here like to accompany meals with salads – local varieties as well as American and French style green salads made of crisp local lettuce.
In Turkey, India and Nepal, we used to ask ourselves when we last had fruit. With the exception of Kerala, fresh produce in our meals was hard to come by. That’s why when we hit Thailand, Emily was all over the som tam and any salads she could get her hands on. In Bangkok, we even went to Sizzler just to have a good salad bar.
Thailand reintroduced us to fruit in a big way. Bali has taken us the next step to delicious vegetables with everything. Just as when I lived here, I feel the positive impact of the food we eat.
Emily too has been happy with the freshness, but because she hasn’t been getting her fix of spicy off the local cuisine, she’s also tapping into the excellent Western cuisine. Unlike Thais who can make western food that looks amazing, but tastes nothing like it should, the Balinese have a flair for Western cooking. They even mix in some fresh Balinese ingredients and take it to the next level.
There’s no trouble finding a gourmet, wood-oven pizza in Ubud, or a salad as good as anything we could find at the best restaurants in Los Angeles. Gourmet pasta, tapas, burgers, wraps, steaks, barbecue….it’s all here and it’s good. So are the many bakeries that make fresh whole grain bread, incredible sourdough and desserts that shame some of the best ones at home.
One foreign cuisine has interested Emily more than all the rest – Japanese. Ubud has sushi at fantastic prices. The Balinese know seafood, so while it’s not their taste to eat it raw, their supply of fresh fish makes it fairly easy. This afternoon Emily discovered she can gorge on sashimi for about $12 at a restaurant with free WiFi. I’ll always know where to find her should we ever get separated.
In my desire to help Emily connect to the flavors of Indonesia, I knew we (me and the 3 million people who live here) would have to turn up the heat. I consulted my friend Chad, and we agreed that there was only one hope – padang.
Padang food comes from Sumatra, but is a popular, affordable meal option at little warungs (food stalls) throughout Bali. There is absolutely nothing fresh about padang food – everything is pre-cooked and stacked on platters.
Customers select their desired combination of fried and spiced chicken, fish, tofu, tempeh, corn fritters, potato cakes, and eggs piled on a stack of white rice. The selections are then accompanied by some cold, cooked green vegetables. Absolutely everything is fried. The entire plate of food is then drenched in the spicy curry of your choice and accompanied by a side of very hot chopped peppers.
“This is right!” Emily exclaimed as she dug into her padang lunch yesterday.
I wasn’t surprised, but I died a little inside. The one cuisine that has no freshness at all is the only one with enough spice for my wife…. At least it’s really cheap – $2.70 for the two of us.
So it is. I’ll just enjoy fresh breakfasts and dinners where the flavors of the veggies and fruits speak for themselves a little more, and my body will be just a bit more grateful….
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