bali – Page 3 – Cooking Masterclass

Ba Nani Restaurant Review Ubud

Ba Nani is one of our favourite little Warong’s on Monkey Forest Road. It is close to our working place so we have been there for lunch a few times. The bright green decor is a beacon for good cheap food.

The ice coffee, at only 8000rp, was not surprisingly made from Bali coffee, though it was large and cold and just what I needed. As I sat down I was surprised with a plate of crackers, something I have not noticed before. I always like freebees.

I ordered lumpia for a starter (this is getting repetitive). At least I can compare restaurants by their lumpia servings. If I had to base my review of Ba Nani on their spring rolls, they would not go so well. The dipping sauce was excellent, as was the amount and taste of the filling, but they did not cook the pre-frozen rolls for long enough so the inside was still cold. For my second roll I left it for a bit longer and the outside heat had filtered through to the middle by then and it was OK to eat.

For my main I ordered their special for the day, chicken basil. The serving was big, I actually started to feel full by the end of it. There was a creamy coconut sauce.

China Moon Ubud Review

The China Moon Cafe is located on a busy corner, opposite Coco’s supermarket at the beginning of monkey forest road. Despite this, they have made a cosy corner that seems miles away from what lies outside.

There is a good range of interesting Indonesian and western dishes, in a menu full of pictures so you know what you are going to get. It includes a sightly Japanese style section as well as desserts, and some healthy drink options.

We decided to go with a starter of Fried Squid Balls (Cumi-Cumi Balls). These were very different flavour mix of salt, chili, cinnamon and light batter, with a slightly chewy texture, they were very enjoyable.

Rob’s Pepe’s Ikan was filled with flavoursome pieces of fish, with just the right amount of spice, with a nice chili sambal on the green beans.

Clare went for a dish called traffic sate, which is fish satay, with glass noodles. The skewered fish was slightly dry and missing a satay sauce which I was expecting, but the noodles were very tasty.

The Moon Cafe is a nice lunch stop if you can switch off from the traffic noise and tune into the funky tunes that are playing in the background.

Room 4 Dessert Ubud Review

Room 4 Dessert in Ubud is a fabulous transformed warehouse type set up, with cosy bench tables, and seats at the bar so you can watch the staff prepare the food in front of you. A great experience to see the effort that goes into the preparation of the dessert, which is only the half of it I am sure!

There is an amazing selection of desserts, although there are only nine to choose from, they all sound very appealing. Aside from the choice of any single dessert you like, for those who can’t decide, you can order a selection of any 3 choices, or even the whole menu if you are a large group to share it among, or if your feeling indulgent for the works. Our choice was to try 3 and share them between the two of us.

We tried the Chocobubbles, which is described as chocolate mousse with mum’s cookies! This was our absolute favourite with such diverse texture of smooth mousse around the crunchy cookies, and the flavour was amazing. Next was The Sugar Refinery which was different to the description on the menu. The palm sugar meringue was so spectacularly different, plated with all the other sweet textures, beside the tangy mangosteen ice. Last choice was Baba o rhiley, chosen somewhat by name (the author’s maiden name is Reilly!?), consisted of rum soaked brioche, snakefruit ice and cashew nutella, a slightly different and not too sweet dessert, with the lovely combination of nutella and rum brioche. MmmMm. The only problem with all of them, was there could have been more.

The menu changes 2-3 times per year, so you can keep coming back till you’ve tried them all, then there will probably be a whole new menu to select from!

You can get a local Indonesian dish for a main if you want but the dessert is what you come here for. There is a pretty groovy cocktail list as well.

Where? It is located along Jl. Raya Sanggingan (Next to Nuri’s)

DIAN restaurant review

Dian restaurant is located on Jalan Monkey Forest in Ubud. Plenty of room and tables, and reasonably quiet except for the building noise going on nearby (which is a given anywhere in Ubud).

Staff were very friendly and were happy for me to order a coffee and sit to do some work, with no pressure for ordering. The coffee was OK, not fantastic, but at least a cappuccino/expresso style.

In the end I ordered some lunch. I went for the sirloin streak with sprouts and onion, rice and an Asian style marinade.

The meal looked impressive brought out on a sizzling hot plate, the sauce tasted great, but the steak itself was nothing to get excited about. I’m glad I asked for medium, as it came out well done and still cooking! It also looked like someone has severed the middle of it before serving it to me! Not bad for the price I guess.

CarameL Patisserie & Cafe Ubud Review

We came to the CarameL Patisserie & Cafe after a meal at a restaurant elsewhere just for dessert. It is at the top end of Jalan Hanoman, and is a tiny but bright shop front, with an upstairs section which expands on the two bar stools down stairs. The display of desserts looks amazing, you can choose, and they deliver to your table.

We can never go past a good-looking chocolate dessert, so for us it was the Triple Chocolate Cake, consisting of layers of decadent cake, dark jelly, ganache and shiny icing. Mouthfuls of deliciousness were had!

The other choice was a Chocolate Dome, which was mousse, salted caramel and a biscuit base with a ganache covering. So amazingly light, but rich and smooth, having an absolutely stunning mouth-feel.

For drinks we chose sangria, which was the best I’ve ever tasted, because it had a super spicy, zesty flavour with a licorice/aniseed taste. Delicious sweet fruit bobbed around the ice, with some sort of frozen spicy gelato. Amazing! I would go there again just to drink this sangria.

The Spicy Tea was interesting at least, a lovely sup of hot tea, but not as spicy as claimed!

Other desserts that missed the opportunity to be devoured by us was a citrus or passion-fruit tart, cheesecake, macaroons, tirimasu, red velvet cake and traditional Balinese layered cake among other things. We will have to come back for some of those!

website: www.caramel-ubud.com

Naughty Nuris Ubud Restaurant Review

Naughty Nuri’s is a long-term favourite hangout for anyone in the know in Ubud. It is the place to go for BBQ meat. If you drive past you will always see a crowded restaurant with smoke billowing from the barbecue out front.

The go to meal here is the pork ribs. They have a bucket out the front which they pull them from and slap them on the grill. There are no fancy servings here, just a pile of meat on a plate. Clare needed some veggies, so tried an Indonesian dish which was not to her liking.

The potato wedges were the best we have had in Bali.

The burgers are also poplar here, and once you see them you will know why.

Rob was just able to get his mouth around it. There was a nicely cooked hot dog for the kids, but don’t expect any extras. Just a sausage in a bun.

The smoke from the BBQ can be a problem. We were seated towards the back and away from the barbie, no smoke but was hot and stuffy.

You will need a drink, and the beer is apparently served very cold which is what you will need. We were not in the mood for a beer, and a large Bintang was Bali expensive at 44,000 rp ++, so we gave it a miss. Clare had an ice tea which was very sweet.

The prices are a bit high for what it was, nothing fancy, service without a smile, but the serve sizes were big, and the food tasty. You have to try it at least once. Olive ate up her dinner, which means it must have been good.

There is a copycat restaurant located a few door up, called Nuris, make sure you go to the right one.

Location: Jl. Raya Sangginan, Kedewatan, Ubud, Bali 80571, Indonesia
Phone: +62 361 977547

Frozen Yogi Ubud Review

The Frozen Yogi desert café is located opposite the soccer field in central Ubud, at the end of Jl Dewi Sita. You cannot miss it as it is bright and happy. The only thing on the menu is self-serve frozen yoghurt. It is clean and friendly, colorful and cute decor.

There is a huge variety of toppings to choose from, and over 40 toppings. Six flavours which change regularly. You can sample them if you are not sure which ones to choose. When we went there was chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, red velvet. You can choose all 6 if you want, but remember you pay by weight. We are very cautious when it comes to these things, and we still paid more than we expected. At $4 a tub it is quite expensive for Bali standards.

website: http://myfrozenyogi.com

Kagemusha Japanese Restaurant Review

The Kagemusha Japanese restaurant is just down the road from where we are staying, and now that we have finally tried the food there, we will be coming back again. The restaurant is quietly hidden off the busy Nyuh Kuning main road near Ubud, overlooking some lush greenery.

There is a selection of books to read, but all in Japanese. This must be a place that Japanese come to eat, a good sign. The only other group to come in while we were eating we Japanese.

The menu was extensive, though our kids were disappointed there were no sushi dishes. There was a similar dish, rice balls wrapped with some flakes in the middle. These were pretty plain and very hard to eat!

The terriaki chicken was a good alternative to the sushi for Olive.

There was another dish that worked very well for the kids, fried rice wrapped in an omelette. It was covered in tomato sauce, not sure about that.

Clare went for a fried eggplant starter which was very tasty, then salty salmon, which true to its name was very salty.

Rob’s choice was terriaki don, the terriaki chicken on rice. It was very filling.

If you are after a Japanese food fix this place is recommended, and very reasonably priced too.

Ubud Inn Review

The restaurant at the Ubud Inn is located at the southern end of Monkey Forest Rd. Not long after we first arrived in Ubud I came here and had an eggplant dish that was not memorable, except just to remember not to come here again. It is one of the closer places to my workplace so I decided to try it again after 6 months.

My first reading of the menu only came up with the same eggplant dish as being enticing, until I noticed the steak section of the menu (I am not usually a steak fan), and decided to go with the ginger fish, which was a tuna steak. The dish came out on a sizzling plate, great as I love to eat my food hot. The steak was a very good size, but instead of the rice I expected it to come with there were chips. Also going with the western theme there was a side of carrots and beans. A typical steak and chips! It was great, a subtle ginger flavour.

I had nearly finished my order when I realised they have a decent coffee machine making espressos. It was a real coffee (by Perth standards) but made very watery and made with UHT milk, so only tasted average.

So far I have had a 50% success rate here, I may come back one day and try something else on the menu. If you sit out the back overlooking their relaxing fountain and pond, listening to Balinese tunes, it is a very relaxing place to eat. If you have the energy, walking another 5 minutes up Monkey Forest Rd towards the markets, you will come across some better choices in the same price range.

LaRaMona Tapas Restaurant Review

LaRaMona Tapas is a relatively new tapas bar on situated on Jl. Dewi Sita in Ubud, Bali. We dropped in here one night for a drink just after it had opened, and promised ourselves that we would come back for a feed as the food looked so good.

We started with the eggplant bruschetta. Egyptian style roasted with matahari peanuts goats cheese feta. The taste was fantastic, though the peanuts a bit too crunchy.

The other dishes we had were the Mararrech Lamb Tagine, with contreau soaked prunes ras el hunout topped toasted almonds served with grilled homemade bread. Also In House Spiced Beef Patatas Bravas, with warm chimmichurri sauce. We also had a roasted eggplant side (which should have been free, see note below)

These were just a few of the fantastic meal choices, there really is a great range. The serves were bigger than we expected for tapas, but that is reflected in the price. Each dish was the price you would expect to pay for a meal in a similar standard restaurant in Ubud.

We were complaining (to each other) about a group near is smoking. I guess you have to put up with that in Bali with more lax rules about smoking in public places. However, we did not expect to see the waitress light up a cigarette not far from us. We had to ask for her to put it out, the smell of smoke was not what we wanted when trying to enjoy their food. It did spoil our night a little.

Another thing, when we checked their facebook page before we went, we noticed that they had daily specials, and that night it was a free side dish with every main. When we arrived we asked about specials but were told there were none. We also questioned them later online and still have not heard a reply.