ubud – Page 3 – Cooking Masterclass

Warung Pojok, Nyuh Kuning, Bali

Warung Pojok is a small restaurant in the centre of the village of Nyuh Kuning, opposite the football field. It is our favourite local restaurant.

We go regularly to this restaurant, so have tried most of the items on the menu. Takeaway is also an option if you need it.

Most times (for Rob) the meal starts with a serving of lumpia (spring rolls). Their satay peanut sauce is one of the best in Ubud, nice and thick.

The special fried rice which comes with a fried egg and sate ayam (chicken on a stick) is a favourite with the kids, as long as we can communicate that we don’t want it spicy! They know us well enough now, to know what we want!

This dish does not look very appetising at all, but it is actually quite delicious. It is fried egg/omelette with vegetables and tofu, and satay sauce on top.

Not sure what this meal is, maybe chicken with a balinese sauce. The tower of rice is symbolic though, with the uppermost part being reserved for the oldest member of the family!

Other meals we regularly order are: Mie goreng (fried noodles), cap cay (stir fried vegetables), fried rice with cap cay on top (Clare’s favourite), satay chicken, fried chicken.

Whatever you choose, it is the best value in the village at around $2-3 per meal. The food is always fresh and tasty. I would not make a special trip to Nyuh Kuning to eat here, but if you are staying nearby it is definitely worth coming for a meal or two.

Trattoria Ubud Review

Trattoria is an Italian restaurant chain that has 16 branches mostly in South East Asia. They must be doing something right to have so many successful stores. Lucky for us, one is just down the road from our house.

On arrival you will be served bruschetta and 3 different types of bread, all complimentary! Got to love some free food!

The menu has a large selection of good pizza options. The pizza are a traditional Italian style with a thin base, but large enough to still be filling. They do some extra-large (some may say giant in fact) pizzas with half and half, if you can get the right match these are a winner.

Two in one

The baked eggplant Parmigiana stack, was super tasty but a little oily, and very filling. It was best shared as a side with some pizza.

Of course they do pasta too, which is very authentic and tasty.

We also had breakfast here one day, but it was unfortunately not very good. They served the overcooked eggs with thin white loaf bread, that just crumbled on the plate.

An omelette

It is a fairly kid friendly place because, firstly most kids love pizza. But also because the plain brown paper place-mats are perfect drawing pads for the creative munchkins, not sure if that is the intention however it works for us! Buon Appetito.

Warung Saya, Ubud

Warung Saya on Jl Goutama in Ubud is one of our favourite places to eat. It is tiny and exclusive little venue nestled between a villa (and currently a construction site). There are only two tables, possibly three, but only if it’s not raining. It is highly recommend that you book, as this place is booked up for at least a week in advance. It is that good.

The menu varies each night, having different choices each day of the week, but only limited choices. There are only three options each night, one Indonesian, one Indian and one Thai choice. Sometimes one of these is a vegetarian choice but not every night. Of all the meals we have had (2 choices on two different nights), they have been excellent quality meals.

Unfortunately we only have one picture of the dishes, which does not give justice to the place. Pictured is Badal Jaam (Indian) eggplant with tomato, creamy yoghurt, a huge entrée size meal. This had amazing depth of flavour being an Indian style curry.

On this night on the menu was Ayam Kecap (Indonesian) – chicken with soybean sauce, and Gaeag Gari Chicken (Thai) – coconut chicken curry with basil.

The chef is a highly charismatic fellow, with a very relaxed attitude. He cooks for the love of it, and loves what he does. He runs the whole show on his own, as he wants the quality of the food and service to be of his very high standard. Not sure how long he will be in the same location as last time we dined there (November 2014) he was talking about moving to a new place. You will not be disappointed with any meal here!

Flabird Coffee Shop, Ubud

A new addition to the Ubud coffee scene is a little café on Jalan Dewi Sita.This quirky and colourful shop have a large range of coffees which they roast and grind themselves. You can buy some to take away or get them to make you a coffee using the drip filter technique.

Included in their range is a selection of flavoured coffee, as well as local Luwak.

They have daily coffee specials for just 10000 Rp, so if you are lucky you can get a cheap cup of quality coffee.

Sjaki-Tari-Us in Ubud Review

Sjaki-Tari-Us is hidden in the corner of the Ubud soccer field, just along from Tutmak, and the CP Lounge. There is a nice relaxed feel about this rather basic warung, but it has a great view overlooking the soccer field in town.

The food is not that great, they serve basic Indonesian meals, and some western dishes like sandwiches with a Balinese twist. We feel it is still worthwhile eating here as it supports an education program for mentally disabled children. Next to it there is a small shop selling goods made by the students at the centre.

We had chicken vegetable curry…

and babi kecap which was a bit soupy …

Just next to the eating area there is a large open space which is the school’s activity area where the kids can play, including balls (sometimes) The little ones can also run about on the footy field, while you wait for your food.

web: www.sjakitarius.nl

Murni’s Warung Ubud

Murni’s claims to be the first ever restaurant in Ubud. It was established in 1974, and is considered an institution, the place to go! It is located just before the bridge on the main road, as you head out of Ubud. As you enter the small underwhelming opening, you quickly realise the fantastic view that is hidden away, and from 4 different levels inside. The place is built on the side of the ravine and you can see the river below from some of the seating areas. One of the levels is a ‘lounge’ with a more relaxed feel. There is free WiFi, of course!

The staff are very friendly and chatty, and there is lots of art work and sculptures around, which links to the shop on the top floor. The shop sells an assortment of nic nacs, and is on both sides of the entrance.

The food we ordered included the Ayam Tutu. A very tasty chicken dish cooked for a long time with Balinese spices, served with an urab salad and yellow rice on the side.

Murni’s fish with tuorto sauce. This was like a casserole of sorts, with a large fish, some veg and served with rice. GInger was the tasty hit I got straight up, but was also a little sweet and very yummy.

Came with a pretty rice

Big fat chunky wedges to share!

Pork spare ribs for olive. Quite nice ribs, tender and tasty, even though we asked for the spicy sauce to be in the side.

It also mentions on the menu that the service time may be slow because all the food is cooked fresh from scratch, but the food came out realtively quickly, no complaints from us. A lovely place to eat, even though it has slightly above-average prices, the quality was there.

Munchies Warung Ubud Review

This place is on the corner of Jalan Raya Ubud, and the street that we stayed on 3 years ago. Just west of town. We chose it today sa there was a large cremation ceremony of a member of the Balinese Royal family. So it was a sight to see the procession as it made its way along the street to the site of the burning.

I am not sure what the theme is supposed to be, its called Munchies and the sign is a rainbow coloured surfboard.

For drinks we had a Sangria, made from rice wine and fruit juices. The taste was very sweet, and rather palatable. With no power due to the parade there were no mixed juices, so Clare had a diet soft drink.

Rob’s standard Lumpia, were good, nothing fabulous, but tasty. Rob’s main meal was steamed minced chicken with spices, sambal matah with rice. A very tasty dish

The beef Randang was average. The meat was tender but there was not enough depth of flavour in the sauce and there was not enough sauce. It was served with sayer urab, the vegetable and coconut

Sangria

Warung Siam on Gautama

Warung Siam located on Jalan Gautama, sits among a host of other restaurants on this very popular and busy street.

It is a small Thai food warung with only a few tables as well as some seating on the street front. The staff were very friendly and accommodating.

For entrée we ordered Thai fish cakes, and some fresh rice paper rolls. Neither of these were stand out fabulous, but were quite nice. The rice paper rolls, were a little bland and fell apart because they were served cut in half! Admittedly it looked nice, but it became quite hard to eat.

Rice paper rolls

Robs main meal was a chicken mince dish, like a ‘Laap’. This was really tasty, and classic Thai.

Clare’s dish was a baked red curry with prawns. This was not what we expected at all. The curry sauce had egg added and baked in the oven, like custard, which created a very unusual texture which didn’t suit the taste of the dish for me. I think I am just used to saucy curries! Once you get past the weird texture, the taste was actually quite nice! There were only a few small prawns, which had the tail still on, which again made the dish difficult to eat.

Both mains were served with a side salad of lightly pickled vegetables, which was a similar dressing to a green pawpaw salad. Very nice.

This was a pretty cheap meal, but generally of a pretty good quality. All this with a large Bintang was 180,000 Rp (about $18).

Address: No. 7 Jl. Gautama, Ubud, Bali 80571, Indonesia

Siam Sally Thai Ubud Review

Siam Sally is the largest Thai restaurant in Ubud, located along Jalan Hanoman in a touristy area. It does however have a nice feel to it. They have a band playing some nights, and there was a funky foursome playing some tunes the night we dined there. The music was a mellow vibe of blended western and Balinese tunes. We did find it to be not quite the right establishment for this type of music, I would more expect to see it at a late night bar, or a funky casual eatery. It is hard to hold a conversation if you are sitting in the main area.

The food was very authentic Thai food, with all the expected options on the menu, as well as some more unusual items. For entrée, we ordered the Thai fish cakes, which are always a favourite of ours,

and a green papaya salad. Both of these were really tasty and with the right level of spiciness.

For main we had Roasted duck curry which surprisingly included lychees, which was surprisingly good.

and a simple basil beef stir fry.

Rob asked for the duck curry to be hot (from a choice of mild, medium or hot), however it wasn’t ‘blow-your-socks-off’ hot, it was only medium on our scale, and given that we are in Bali where the norm is very hot, this was a little out of sync.

Both dishes were however, great tasting, and super satisfying.

No dessert for us. Just an extra happy hour cocktail, which is on until 7pm. The staff were very friendly and kind enough to remind us when happy hour ended, allowing us to make one last order!

Overall this restaurant is a very nice place to enjoy delicious and authentic Thai food, with a nice atmosphere. They even have valet parking if you drive yourself there, what a treat.

Location: Jalan Hanoman, Pengosekan, Ubud, Bali

Who’s Who review Ubud

Who’s Who is a relatively new restaurant in the crowded restaurant scene of Ubud. It is located on Jalan Raya Pengosekan, which is the road heading south from Ubud. It is situated down a side alley, with some brand new villas being built across from it, but it still feels quite private.The guy who runs the place is Belgian, so the food has a distinctly Belgium theme. There are not many seats, only 3 tables, but there are lovely surrounds and it feels quite roomy.

Keripik (Indonesian chips) were complementary, though if you like them so much you can order extra from the menu. The dip that comes with it, is a potato, mayonnaise and spice dip which was delicious!

For an entree we shared a salad, which really flavouresome. The smoked Marlin Salad which consisted of apple, shallots, green beans and rocket, was a creamy, smokey and crunchy experience. There was a side salad of tomato, basil and cucumber, with a vinaigrette. There were other very nice sounding salads on the menu as well.

Rob’s main was a chicken dish described as a national food with celery, carrot, leek and baby potato. Great flavour, but came hot with a cold salad on the same plate, which was a bit strange.

Clare’s dish was called Black Tiger prawn (fennel, zucchini, leek and baby potato), which had a similar taste to the chicken dish with the same cold salad on the side. The flavour was very ‘seafoody’ but well balanced, and maybe because I wasn’t super hungry, it wasn’t that appetising. A lovely meal. It would have been nice though to have tried something a little different.

The Smoked marlin salad was a highlight. The two main dishes we had were uncomfortably similar, and the cold fresh salad placed in the same bowl seemed like a poor choice.

This is certainly something a little different in Ubud. The staff were really friendly, even offering Rob a replacement beer, after it spilled on the crooked table. It is definitely recommended.