casual and street food in bali.
i've posted about a couple of the nicer meals we had on our trip to bali, but we ate many meals of casual and tasty street food! here are the highlights!
this first place was a large building that stood over man-made ponds in the middle of some rice fields. the ponds held live fish that they would catch when you ordered! it was a welcome meal after an epic hike up an entire mountain to see the temples lempuyang. we ordered ikan goreng (fried fish), nasi goreng udang (shrimp fried rice), and of course, bintang! bintang was the ubiquitous beer in bali, and probably indonesia, and we basically drank it everywhere with every meal. it was always ice cold, and perfect with the spicy food and humid weather!
in ubud, we heard we had to stop at naughty nuri's warung. they're famous for their barbecue (i know, not balinese or indonesian, but this place is an institution!). we had their pork ribs, kebabs and potato wedges. amaaaazing!
we went to their second location, practically next door, later that night for dinner and had the mie goreng (fried noodles). this was particularly amazing at the time because we'd been in bali for a week at this point and only had RICE with every meal, so getting some noodles in my noodle-loving-belly was quite glorious.
and of course, we had to try some babi guling, a balinese specialty of a whole roast suckling pig. warung ibu oka in ubud is the most famous for it (having been visited by anthony bourdain about a decade ago). it was insanely good and deliciously spicy. and the piece of crackling that they give you is heaven.
another stop we were told we had to make in ubud is bebek bengil, or dirty duck diner, for their crispy dirty duck. it's a deep-fried half duck that comes with rice and several tasy accompaniments. the flavors were great! but i feel like our duck was a bit over-fried, reducing the amount of meat that was really available to eat.
one of the coolest things about eating here though, was the view. we got to sit on the second floor overlooking a beautiful rice field - a completely different and unexpected view from the the busy street front.
when we went up to lovina beach, we stayed at an expat's airbnb, and he took us to dinner at a small place on the beach. it seemed like a bit of an expat hangout, but we ordered a fish, they brought out a live one to make sure it was a good size for us, and then fried it. so simple, so tasty.
in the outskirts of lovina, there is a restaurant, i don't remember the name now, where all the tables are really bales by the shore. you could order various seafoods, grilled or fried, as well as veggies and rice. the view was beautiful, and the food great and cheap, but there were wild cats and kittens begging for food all over the place. if i weren't deathly allergic to cats, i wouldn't have minded so much.
oh, and one last note on beer! after drinking bintang for basically the entire trip, we actually found some local craft on our last day! one was albens cider, and the other was stark wheat beer.
i really loved the food in bali - so many spices i've really never had the pleasure of tasting before. they are amazing at packing so much flavor into so few ingredients and such simple dishes!
