What do you eat in Bali? Good question, because a large part of our vacations are also gastronomic vacations. An opportunity to try new flavors and textures, to venture into culinary experiences very different from everyday ones.
Bali is Indonesia, east of Java, in a part of the planet with a truly unique culinary tradition, full of flavors. So I hope you give yourself the opportunity to be open about gastronomy and enjoy exotic and tasty cuisine.
How much does it cost to eat in Bali
As we said above Bali is a province of Indonesia, is part of a small group of islands and is the province with hindu majority in that place. It is part of the Coral Triangle, one of the areas with the greatest biodiversity on the planet and has around 500 coral reefs, about seven times more than what we find, for example, in the Caribbean Sea.
These landscapes, always characterized by abundance, offer, when we think about gastronomy, thousands of fields planted with rice, coconut palms, fruit trees, coffee plantations, seas with abundant fish…So, it's a feast of food.
First let's imagine the daily, regular diet, and on the other a typical religious festival meal. The regular diet is based on rice with some side dishes with vegetables, fish or meat., but religious festival food is supposed to point to the gods, so it usually includes chicken, duck, and more fish.
In Bali eaten regularly twice a day and both dishes are usually cooked in the morning, left there and the family can help themselves whenever they are hungry. Meals are not social gatherings, it is eaten quickly and generally, alone. Afterwards he snacks buying snacks on the street.
On the contrary, festival meals are group meals, more intensive, prepared with dedication and decorated with mastery. After all, the main diners are the gods. So knowing all this, How much does it cost to eat in Bali? The big question, because it does not seem to be an expensive destination and the food we just described is simple.
The price of a dish can be around IDR 20.000 (1.2 euros), in a stall or about 5.3 euros in a more or less good restaurant. Something more elegant can reach 35 euros. Many of these places, but not the so-called warungs, which are small, family-run restaurants, add a tax to the price indicated on the menu, is usually a percentage of between 10 and 21%.
Write down these relative prices: beers are around IDR 30.000, an orange juice in bars and restaurants is between 1500 and 35.000 IDR. A dinner for two in a standard restaurant is between 200000 and 300.000 IDR and a luxury dinner around IDR 500.000. IDR is the acronym for the Indonesian rupiah.
Typical Balinese foods
Remember Bali offers a wide variety of food and drinks due to the abundance of its lands and seas. It is impossible to ignore rice, it has enormous plantations thanks to its position close to the equator and its fields of rich land due to the volcanic activity that gave rise to them.
The dishes are simple and vary little from day to day, but they are very tasty.
Satay
This dish is also known as satay. In this dish with meat, usually chicken, cooked over charcoal and seasoned with a mild peanut sauce. It is a great snack or a complete meal if served with rice.
Peanut sauce has a very distinctive sweet aroma.
gado gado
It is nothing other than a typical Indonesian salad, but with ingredients and flavors that will explode in your brain. Have you seriously only eaten tomato, lettuce and egg salads your entire life?
Gado gado salad is made with many cooked or raw vegetables, in general cabbage, beans, beans, carrots and some green vegetables typical of Asia that are chopped a little and crowned with tofu, tempeh or hard-boiled eggs, to which satay sauce is added. It is a very popular lunch.
Fried noodles
You can't miss the noodles, so this is a dish based on fried noodles. It has garlic, lots of it, vegetables and meat of your choice. Then the noodles are transferred to a bowl with a lot of sticky sauce and They are topped with a fried egg.
Obviously, with such a dish there is no room for anything else. It is also a dish that is widely sold in street chirignuitos.
Bebek betutu
It is a dish that is served a lot in restaurants. It is typically made with chicken or duck and it involves cooking the entire bird with a delicious blend of spices and other ingredients such as ginger, onions, garlic and chili.
Se steam cooking for about eight hours, it cooks super long, and the end result is an explosion of flavors when you insert the fork and open the meat.
Fried rice
It literally means fried rice and it is a dish that, with a thousand variations, you will find throughout Asia and Indonesia. The nasi goreng It is one of the most popular Balinese dishes of everyone and you will find it everywhere, from any beach bar to a five-star hotel restaurant.
Consists in fried rice with pieces of meat and vegetables with a fried egg. Simple, tasty and satisfying.
Baby guling
This dish is pure pig. It is cook the whole animal, stuffing it with spices various such as ginger, galangal, shallot onions, coriander seeds, aromatic leaves, chili and turmeric. It is then left over an open fire, rotating, for several hours until it is cooked but juicy and with crispy skin.
Babi guling is usually served at celebrations and weddings, but family restaurants also sell it and when they do it is usually their signature dish.
Cap Cay
This is a vegetable dish very simple and tasty. You can use cauliflower, green Chinese cabbage, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, scallions, and you can even add some meat if you don't want the vegetarian version: chicken, liver, shrimp, beef meatballs or fish.
The ingredients vary according to the taste of the cook but most of the vegetables you will see on a Cap cay plate are carrots, cauliflower and cabbage. This is a dish with clear Chinese influences, in fact the name means nothing more than "mixed vegetables" and comes from the Hokkien province in China.
Kari Ayam
Is the Balinese version of chicken curry. It is an almost golden curry, an elegant and tasty mixture of ginger, galangal, lemongrass and other aromatic herbs. First, a spice paste is made with onions, garlic, chilis, lemongrass, galangal, ginger, turmeric, ground almonds, coriander and black pepper plus some palm sugar.
Everything is passed through a mortar or processor, the oil is heated in a frying pan and the pasta is fried a little. Then the chicken meat is added to seal it and absorb the flavors of the spice paste. Add some water and let it boil until the meat is completely cooked. Then it has some coconut milk and chopped tomatoes and is finally served with rice.
ayam bakar
This is a Typical Indonesian dish: charcoal-cooked chicken. There are variants depending on the region, but basically it involves letting the chicken marinate with a paste of various spices and then cooking it.
The final flavor of the chicken will vary depending on the spices used, which, in addition to being used in the marinade, also serve to rub the chicken during cooking.
Fried bananas
Continuing with our list of what is eaten in Bali, we cannot fail to mention the pilang goreng, the fried banana fritter which is not only eaten in Bali but throughout Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia.
It has to be made with ripe bananas and not the yellow ones that we all know. These yellow ones are very soft to fry. So, frying is also done with palm or coconut oil. It is simple to make and that is why it is very popular and is usually eaten on the street, for breakfast, as a snack, as a snack.
It is accompanied with some tea or coffee and It is very typical of the warung kopi or small and family restaurants.
What do you eat the most in Bali?
Bali offers us a great variety of food and drinks: basically rice and fresh fruits and vegetables are the order of the day. Dairian meals include rice, vegetables, peanuts and sometimes some meat, which can be pork or chicken, all seasoned with spices.
Since the majority of Bali's population is Hindu, finding dishes with pork is easier than in other regions of Indonesia. Remember cows are sacred so dishes with beef are rare or almost impossible to find.
Rice is the absolute king of Balinese cuisine, So, expect everything or almost everything to be served with rice instead of bread. Also with sambal, the most classic and spicy accompaniment. Basically I would recommend Don't leave Bali without eating babi guling, lawar, ayam betutu, nasi campur, gado gado, babi guling, pepes ikan and satay.
And in terms of drinks there are many tropical fruit juices which are made with water, but also with tea and sometimes coffee. You can try campu, a pink fruit-based drink, very sweet and containing coconut, tapioca, fruits, palm syrup and gelatin. Brem It is another drink, but alcoholic, a rice distillate.
To finish, some more tips: The food is always divided into small portions and sometimes it is served on the skin of a banana, if it is an offering to the gods. It is customary that if the person wants a second round of food, they must first clean the plate. If there is still some food it is understood that he will not eat more.
Finally, to close our article on what do you eat in Bali, Keep in mind that there are always two ways to try local cuisine: or in a small family restaurant, here they are called roadside stall, generally with buffet service; or in a larger restaurant. These are usually the most chosen by tourists for reasons of hygiene and quality of the food. And speaking of that, the beach bars are good but we don't know the hygiene they manage so I would be extremely careful.