Healthy Eating in Bali

Offering a range healthy & organic cuisine, & workshops by visiting food gurus see large Bali is experiencing a new revolution in organic growing! Local farmers are increasingly aware of the impact & costs of using harmful chemicals and are choosing to return to traditional farming techniques. A wider choice of healthy organic foods is flowing into Indonesia’s markets, inspiring new restaurants and health food shops in Bali and Jakarta. The reasons for going organic are many, including health, compassion, preserving natural resources, and making better use of water and farm lands. Serious vegetarians won’t go hungry in Indonesia. Read up on Jakarta-based Indonesian Vegan Society (www.i-v-s.org). To help the preservation of Indonesia’s environment, see Bali’s list of non-profit organizations. And, for fun, read this interesting and comical article about Bali’s Cuisine Unseen by Bali based writer, Ibu Cat. The farms, shops and restaurants listed here are owned by environmentally aware entrepreneurs. By supporting them, you reinforce these values at a local level. Bali Healthy Restaurants & Shops Feast on the freshest organic and vegetarian selections throughout Bali in a growing number of cafés and restaurants. Bali Organic Farms & Markets A delicious range of fresh fruits, vegetables, cheeses and herbs produced in Bali’s cool mountains by ethical farmers. Balinese Cooking Schools Enter the world of Bali’s unique cuisine, with its mouth-watering combinations of flavours and textures. 5-Star Organic Cuisine Day by Day more and more luxury resorts are joining the organic revolution by inviting extraordinanary international chefs into their kitchens to create luxurious yet healthy gourmet cuisine. Bali Night Life – NEW! Bali is known for its incredible nightlife, full of discos, jazz clubs and romantic spaces. In this section we offer referrals to clubs that have great musicians, good food and drink (not necessarily organic) but, more importantly, are a clean and safe space to have fun.

RESTAURANT & BAR IN BALI

bar & Club Blue Night Club, Kama Sutra, Musro, The Wave Kuta. Want more? Browse the rest of bars and clubs listed in our directory.

Cafe Relax your mind by entering the cozy cafes in Bali.

Catering Bali catering list let you easily order food packages for your occasion.

European Restaurants with European cuisines

French Restaurant with French cuisines

German Restaurants with German cuisines

Indonesian Restaurant with Indonesian menus including Bainese cuisine in Kuta, Nusa Dua, Kerobokan and other areas in Bali

International Restaurants with international menus available in Kuta, Seminyak, Legian, Ubud and other areas in Bali.

Italian Restaurants with Italian cuisines

Japanese Restaurants with Japanese cuisines

Mediterranean

Thai Food Restaurants with Thai cuisines

Vegetarian Don;t eat meat? Find it here for alternative meals.

ALL RICE & PIG ???????

We love food and believe it behooves all of us to know a little bit more about it. Hope you enjoy these culinary tidbits. RICE, RICE EVERYWHERE If you have been in Bali more than a day, you already know locals eat a lot of rice, which in its cooked state we call nasi. Rice for breakfast, rice for lunch, rice for dinner. What takes the monotony out of this? Side dishes and condiments, of course. Add it all up and you have the most common meal, Nasi Campur (pronounced “champoor”) which means mixed rice. If you want your rice to go, ask for Nasi Bungkus. It’s the same meal, but it will be wrapped in either 1) a banana leaf, 2) a paper wrapper. Maybe you have guessed by now that bungkus means wrapper. When the same meal comes in a box, we call it Nasi Kotak. No surprise, kotak means box. <!–Nasi Campur varies everywhere. At Kafe Batan Waru, we serve nasi sela, an old-fashioned preparation made by mixing steamed rice with diced sweet potato. Nasi sela was forced upon the Balinese as a cheaper alternative to white rice during the Dutch colonial occupation, but ironically it’s now quite popular-and even more costly than pure rice. Surrounding the nasi sela we serve sapi sisit, shredded beef dry-fried with chili, gerangasem, chicken stewed with freshly chopped spices, a vegetarian version of lawar (see below), pergedel jagung, a savory corn fritter, and crisp fried soybean cake known as tempe, or tempeh in English. Three different sambals, spicy chili condiments, and an addicting coconut condiment known as saur round out the meal. A vegetarian version adds some tofu in a chili sauce. –> Surrounding the nasi sela we serve organic chicken stewed in freshly ground spices, wild mountain fern tips with grated coconut and spices, sweet corn fritters, a crisp shrimp in rice batter, and lots of yummy condiments and sambals. A vegetarian version is also available. After the popularity of nasi campur comes the runner up in popularity, nasi goreng, or fried rice. Nasi goreng is a good way to use up yesterday’s rice, whose dryness actually makes for superior results. It’s also quick, so lots of people make nasi goreng for breakfast. Bubur injin, known as black rice pudding, is another breakfast favorite, and very popluar with Westerners who often favor something a bit sweet for breakfast. It’s made with a delicious, very dark strain of rice. SOTO AND SATÉ Many Indonesians love soto ayam in the morning, a delicious chicken broth redolent with garlic, turmeric, and ginger. (And guess what. They have it with rice on the side!) Our all natural version is popular not only with Indonesians, but Westerners who don’t have a tolerance for MSG. Then there’s saté, skewered meat grilled over coconut shell charcoals. Most people think saté has to come with peanut sauce, but not true. Madurese saté, typically prepared from goat (kambing) or chicken (ayam), is indeed bathed in a smooth peanut sauce before serving, but once you get to Bali, you’ll find the indigenous saté babi, or pork saté, often rubbed with chili paste, grilled, and eaten with . . . you guessed, rice. Along the coast, Balinese pound fish, coconut, and spices together, wrap the concoction on bamboo or sugar cane, and call it saté ikan lilit. Upcountry, the same preparation is made with pork or duck, and is not only food for ordinary mortals, but for religious offerings and other ceremonial purposes as well. These saté even appear on trays of food assembled for the express purpose of presenting to a neighbor or friend as part of a formal invitation to one’s family ceremony, such as a wedding or a tooth filing. The more saté on the tray, the more the inviter thinks of you! NOT A GOOD DAY TO BE A PIG During the Balinese holy days of Galungan and Kuningan, Balinese really love to eat meat, especially pork. In fact, in less prosperous times, a typical Balinese consumed the majority of his or her annual animal protein during these holidays. The day that precedes each of these holidays is called Penampahan, and this day marks the climax of food and religious offering preparations for the next day’s ceremony. On the morning of Penampahan, Balinese head to market before dawn to purchase enough food to last at least three days. Once home, Balinese prepare pork in a number of ingenious ways, the most famous of which is lawar. The ritual act of preparing lawar (and traditional saté, for that matter) holds such significance in Balinese culture that it is given its own word: mebat. This applies to its preparation not only in the home, but even in the village meeting house, or balai banjar. (While in Bali, look around the village meeting houses and you may see dozens of men assembled, collectively employing crude cleavers and cutting boards in a communal mebat.) Boiled young jackfruit, long beans, young papaya, and raw coconut are grated or finely chopped, then added to cooked minced pork. It takes a good hand to do the rest, mixing the above ingredients with perfect proportions of fried sliced garlic and sliced shallots, a paste of at least fifteen spices, friend shrimp paste, hot chilies, kaffir lime leaves and juice, and salt. And in defiance of all conventional food hygiene, some Balinese still add a generous dose of raw pig’s blood to redden the dish and add flavor. Trust us, it’s not necessary. On the morning of Penampahan, lawar is usually ready to eat by 7 or 8 a.m., and it is consumed immediately before the ingredients sour. Believe it or not, it’s not the meat that sours first. It’s the coconut. Stomachs full, Balinese then begin making the other pork preparations, including babi kecap (a pork stew) and tum babi, little dumplings of minced pork and spices wrapped and steamed in banana leaves. And ever-economical and practical, Balinese prolong the shelf life of lawar-if there are indeed any leftovers-by wrapping it into dumplings and steaming it along with the tum babi. Yet another famous Balinese pork dish is the famed Babi Guling, a spit-roasted whole pig stuffed with a delicious mix of herbs and spices. Baby babi guling can often be seen as the centerpiece of religious offerings, left there just long enough to satisfy the deities, and then eagerly seized and sliced up to serve the pious. Balinese prize the golden skin, so crisp you can snap it in two. Again, many make their fortunes selling babi guling strictly for human consumption. You’ll see food stalls all over the island selling it, or you can order it in advance at Kafe Batan Waru. NOT A GOOD DAY TO BE A DUCK EITHER Ducks also meet their demise during the holidays. You should not leave the island without trying bebek tutu, Balinese smoked duck. Traditionally, it’s a dish a Balinese would only prepare for a ceremony since it involves at least six hours of ingredient preparation, and as many hours again to smoke in a mound of rice husks. Many Balinese now supplement their livings by supplying smoked ducks to the big hotels, most of which don’t want the smoke disturbing their guests. Kafe Batan Waru can provide you with this specialty given a day’s advance notice. Speaking of ducks, since they feed in the rice paddies on worms and insects, they themselves are considered to have a pure diet and their meat is suitable to be consumed by the Balinese Hindu priests. It’s useful to know that lawar and tum can also both be prepared with rice field feeding duck if you have to feed a priest.

GOING BANANAS  There are dozens of varieties of bananas cultivated in Indonesia.  To plant bananas, you don’t use seeds. Take a shoot from one banana trunk cluster and transplant it. This begs the question: Which came first, the banana or the banana trunk?  A banana tree grows many trunks, each one producing only one bunch of bananas, after which it is chopped down.?  Sliced, the trunk makes a nice, crunchy vegetable. Peeled in concentric rings, the fiber makes a biodegradable candle shade. Whole, the trunk functions as a pegstand for a shadowmaster’s resting puppets during a performance of the shadow puppet play know as wayang kulit.  There are dozens of uses for a banana leaf too. Look around Bali. You’ll see them used as umbrellas, food wrappers, decoration . . . and even as bicycle mud guards!

HOW DO YOU SAY RICE? Sawah – rice paddy Padi – harvested rice still on the stalk Jijih – unhulled rice Beras – hulled uncooked rice Nasi – cooked rice Bubur – rice porridge

CUT AND PASTE Base gede can be translated as grand spice paste, and is the basis for some of Bali’s most famous dishes. A good base gede has not less than 25 ingredients, ranging from the obvious (garlic, for example) to the obscure (the bark of a sweet flag tree, and the resin of the styrar benzoin tree).

HOW DO YOU SAY EAT? Marayunan When addressing a priest Rayunan When addressing a Brahman or nobleman Ngajeng When addressing an elevated commoner Madaar When addressing any commoner Ngamah When referring to an animal And you thought English speakers needed a large vocabulary!

It’s all about bali’s food

	What the London Financial Times describes as “price and quality that would embarrass your average London restaurateur”, TeraZo delivers ultra-fresh pan-Asian and international cuisine in stylish Colonial Modern surroundings.
Come try for yourself what many describe as the best food in Bali.
	“A garden restaurant and pub, Cinta Grill combines grill classics with an imaginative menu of salads, pastas, Asian curries, and stir-fries, and
down-home desserts, all in a modern Balinese garden setting. Come dine or chill in the heart of Ubud.
	Rated Bali’s “Best Indonesian restaurant”, this perpetually popular café serves up an imaginative menu of Indonesian and Balinese favorites in a charming setting. There is something for everyone at Kafe Batan Waru.
	Catering & Wedding