Café Smorgås, Sanur Bali

Cafe Smorgas Sanur Bali

We came across Café´Smorgås while walking along the main road of Sanur, Bali, looking for somewhere for lunch. There were still a few people having a late breakfast, or dropping in for a coffee. We found out that Smörgås means sandwich in Swedish, and so was a great place to have a sandwich.

Cafe Smorgas Sanur Bali

 

The wrap was full of healthy goodness.

Cafe Smorgas Sanur Bali

Toasted focaccia bread sandwich

Cafe Smorgas Sanur Bali

The kids were adequately entertained, using the paper and drawing supplies that were there.

Cafe Smorgas Sanur Bali

Warung Igelanca, Ubud

Warung Igelanca, UbudWarung Igelanca is a relaxed casual restaurant located on Ubud main road just a few doors along from Bali Buda, and opposite the Neka Gallery. It serves Indonesian food, but not just the usual meals that you find in other restaurants around Ubud. Indonesian is such a large country with varied cuisines, but you don’t usually find a lot of different choices. Here you can eat some meals from Java and Sumatra.

Warung Igelanca, Ubud

Mixed juice, choices included carrot, star fruit, tomato, apple, cucumber, lime. I was very happy with my choice of star fruit and apple. Star fruit juice is not very common back home, and as we won’t be in Bali for much longer I need to maximise eating and drinking the local food.

Warung Igelanca, Ubud

Tempe Penyet – fried tempe with East Javanese spicy paste and basil.

Warung Igelanca, Ubud
Nasi goreng cap cay. lots of garlic, not very spicy.
Warung Igelanca, UbudServed with pickled vegetables on the side
Warung Igelanca, Ubud
A very good experience. Go to Igelanca if you want to sample some different local foods in a relaxed restaurant.

Warung Biah Biah Ubud

Warung Biah Biah from Jalan GoutamaWarung Biah Biah is one of our favourite restaurants, on our favourite eating street in Ubud, Jalan Goutama.

They serve authentic Balinese and Indonesian food, served on banana leaves. They even encourage you to eat with your hands (right hand as is the custom in Asia) the Balinese way.

biah biah

They have a good range of tapas style small meals so you can easily sample quite a few dishes, and they are cheap too.

Some of the dishes we get here include:

  • ayam sambal matah
  • bergedel
  • pork sausage

Novotel Sen5es Buffet Breakfast

We love a buffet breakfast, and we could not miss the chance to go to the Sen5es restaurant at the Novotel Perth Langley. We went on a Sunday morning, and were lucky to have booked as it was packed full of mostly visiting groups.

There were a couple of food stations, which contains the usual hot western breakfast foods such as eggs, bacon, cooked tomato, hash brown, sausages, mushrooms. At least the staples were there.

Novotel Langley Perth

It is the more unusual items that make a special buffet breakfast. Some of the things that you don’t always find at a buffet breakfast included Chinese steamed pork buns, smoked salmon, stir fried noodles, which were all a great addition.

There were a good variety of juices including carrot and tomato. You could make your own coffee, but why would you when you could order an espresso coffee from the barista.

There was a large choice of breads, including a freshly baked crusty loaf which was so popular they could not keep up supply. It could have been better if a grainy bread was on offer. There was also a good mix of cakes and pastries.

The place is quite family friendly. The place was pretty noisy, so the extra noise that kids can somtimes make was not noticeable. Our kids were able to help themselves to most of the food items. The staff were very friendly.

Novotel Langley Perth

On the negative side, we noticed they were quite slow to clean up plates, a few things ran out and were slow to be refreshed.

We came only because we had a Groupon voucher, and it was quire busy for a Saturday morning, probably due to their recent Groupon promotion. The voucher made it a very economical outing, but we enjoyed it so much we would consider coming back again and paying full price.

Need To Know

address: Novotel Perth Langley, 221 Adelaide Terrace, Perth WA 6000
phone: (08) 9221 1200

Bridge Inn Hotel

Bridge Inn Hotel

The Bridge Inn Hotel has undergone a facelift and renovation in the last couple of years. As we regularly past the hotel when visiting family in the area, we thought it was time to check it out. There is the bistro and lounge eating areas. The bistro had a more extensive and more expensive menu but was closed on the day we visited (Easter Sunday) so we were not able to try it out. We ate in the lounge area, and were lucky to get a seat of this busy day.

There were lots of appealing choices on the menu. The salads, pizzas and burgers all looked good, but we went with the pub standards from the menu, as we prefer to do when visiting such establishments.

Arancini balls –  Rice balls stuffed w smoked ham hock, mozzarella cheese, sundried tomatoes, served w a mixed mustard mayonnaise

Arranchini balls at the Bridge Inn Hotel

Porterhouse Steak – Cooked to your liking served with chips, salad & mushroom gravy

steak, Bridge Inn Hotel

Risotto, one of the specials. A bit sloppy for my liking.

Bridge Inn Hotel

There were good kids meal selections. Our kids all had the Chicken Schnitzel – House made schnitzel served with chips & salad.

Overall it was as expected for a pub meal, good-sized meals at reasonable prices. It is a good place to go if you live out this way, as there are not of other options nearby.

Bridge Inn Hotel
1425 Plenty Road Mernda, VIC 3754
web: www.thebridgeinnhotel.com.au
ph. 03 9037 1800

Tropical View Cafe, Ubud

Tropical View Cafe UbudThe tropical View Cafe is located next to the Monkey Forest on the Monkey Forest Road, and like the name says, it has a tropical view of rice fields.

We had been reluctant to go here as it seemed like it is made to cater for the hoards of tourists that visit the neighbouring Monkey Forest. However, we were surprised to find that the food’s not that bad and the prices reasonable.

Tropical View Cafe UbudI believe you can make a judgement about a restaurant by their burger, and they made a decent effort at this, by Bali standards.

Tropical View Cafe Ubud

Need to Know:
Located a short walk east along from the main Monkey Forest entrance on the Ubud side. Free WIFI is available.

 

Uma Mandi Coffee review

Uma Mandi is a very small coffee shop on Jalan Penestanan, a little out the back of the main village of Penestanan, next to Zest Cantika spa.


This place is nestled neatly between rice paddies and is away from the busy streets of Ubud town centre.

They claim to have the best coffee, and I would have to agree! The coffee is fantastic for Bali standards. Plus you just can’t beat the relaxing spot they are in, it makes all your worries vanish. They also serve a variety of drinks, from hot and cold coffee to milkshakes and juices. 

It is situated out the front of some villas (Mandi Villlas), and the building itself is small and stands alone, but the set up is really cute, and quirky! It is worth a stop, to relax before getting a massage next door.

 

Kangkung (Indonesian Greens) recipe

A simple but lovely recipe for a popular green vegetable in Bali called kangkung, or water spinach. Totally overused in Bali as it grows so well. It is not an overly exciting green, so you could use something different if you like, or if you can’t find it.

Ingredients:

  • large bunch of water spinach (or other green veg)
  • 1/4 chili
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1/2 tomato
  • 1 shallot
  • 1/2 tsp oyster sauce
  • 1/2 tsp soy sauce
  • salt to taste

Method:

  1. Fry up the onion, garlic and chili until soft
  2. Add the tomato and sauces for 2  minutes
  3. Add in the water spinach on high heat, and toss to cook and cover with the sauce.
  4. Eat on its own or serve with the ayam sambal matah

 

Ayam Sambal Matah recipe

Another splendid Indonesian dish, that smacks you in the mouth with flavour galore. This has to be one of our favourite meals eaten during our time in Bali. So simple to prepare, with minimal cooking, and delicious. Technically this is actually sambal matah sereh (lemongrass), as the original recipe uses torch ginger flowers instead of the lemongrass, which is equally ‘smack in the mouth’ delicious.

Ingredients:

  • 2 sticks of lemongrass ,
  • 5 shallots, finely sliced
  • juice of 1 kafir lime (regular lime would be OK)
  • 2 small chili (hot ones)
  • 1/4 large red chili  (not-so-hot one)
  • 150g chicken (ayam) marinated in Tbs kecap manis and a little salt

Method:

  1. Smash and finely slice the lemongrass, finely slice the shallots and both chilies.
  2. Mix all these together with the lime juice, massage together with your fingers (this is where the love comes in to the dish) then let it all rest while you…
  3. Chop the chicken into large squares, and fry with oil on high heat until dark golden brown and close to crispy. Let it cool a little before shredding the chicken apart.
  4. Lightly mix the pulled chicken with the spicy sambal mix, and serve with some vegetables (recipes to come)

My mouth is salivating just writing this recipe up, OMG. YOu will love this flavour if you love spicy food. Enjoy.

Balinese Curry Recipe

This dish I made at a cooking class at one of my fave restaurants, D’Warung with Kadek! It tasted absolutely delicious, at first I was hoping I could share the taste but in the end I was glad to eat it all myself – ahh so selfish but yummy.

Ingredients:

  • 300ml coconut milk (fresh is so good, but tinned versions are fine if you’re not in the tropics)
  • Any type of meat or vegetable can be used (I used chicken and lots of different vegetables)
  • 1 shallot
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • 3 candlenut (or macadamia nut)
  • 1 lemongrass stick
  • fresh chilli (number depends on desired spice level)
  • 4-5 bay leaves (again fresh is best, but dried can work too)
  • finger size ginger root
  • finger size aromatic ginger root (kuncir)
  • finger size tumeric root (kunyit)

Method:

  1. Finely chop, dice, cut up all the spice ingredients. Do this until all are very finely ground. By hand this took a very long time (although I enjoyed some nice conversation with my mentor). If you are in more of a hurry you could throw them all in a spice blender to save time.
  2. Fry the spice mix in a little oil until fragrant
  3. Add the coconut milk
  4. Add the chicken cook for a few minutes, then add pre-cooked potato, then the other vegetables in reverse order of cooking time, with green beans added on high heat for the last 2-3 minutes to preserve the bright green colour.
  5. Serve with steamed white rice and enjoy!

This spice mix can also be the base for soups or spicy meat dishes. It has a great all round robust flavour.