When we were kids – an interactive adventure

Have you ever opened a tin of ham with one of those stupid key things?  And then, after breathing a sigh of relief when you got to the end of the awkward triangular-shaped tin without cutting your finger off, did you then lift the top off, and before turning the lovely pink delicacy onto a Bakelite plate, extend your index finger and lovingly scrape it across the top of the ham, scoop up the briny jelly and then put it in your mouth?

No?

Oh.

I have.

What about condensed milk straight off the spoon?

Milo sandwiches? 

Lettuce cups filled with sugar?

Jelly crystals straight from the packet?

Frozen meat pies?

Come on!  I know you can relate to at least some of these!

In the spirit of adventure, I think it’s time we all fessed up to those culinary indulgences we used to partake in (or perhaps still do) that really test the boundaries of what constitutes experimental eating (or, perhaps what constitutes food in general – I’m thinking of my brother’s penchant for Good-o here). 

It’s time to get interactive on yo’ asses!

Don’t be shy now.  I want to know.  Please put your comments below and feel free to dob in your friends.  I guarantee at least one moment of hilarity for all respondents.

Holy Crap! What’s that? #1

It’s a WATER APPLE

Locally known in Timor/Indonesia as Jambu.

What does it look like?

It looks really pretty, like this:

Water apples can be either bright pink or lime green.  They are about 3-4 cm in diameter.

How does it taste?

It’s freaking delicious and very refreshing.

Personally, I think it tastes like a nashi pear with a twist of lime.  The edible skin on the outside is quite waxy, but very thin and the flesh is really crisp and juicy and slightly spongy at the core.

How do you cook it?

You don’t.  You can pick it and eat it straight off the tree, which is one of its best qualities, but it also goes well in both fruit and vegetable salads.  Because it’s so pretty, it adds to the visual effect of anything you put it with.

A quick snack @ Lavalon Tourist Information Centre, Kupang

On our way home, we flew from Bali to Kupang in West Timor so that we could catch a bus back to the East Timor border.  We had one night in Kupang which I was pretty unimpressed about.  My previous two experiences of Kupang involved little more than a sense of bewilderment (at why on earth all the shops and restaurants had their backs to the beach) and annoyance (at the fact that there were no footpaths anywhere).

As it turns out, we were just in the wrong part of town.  Kupang actually does have a few places where you can have a beer and watch the sunset over the beach.  One of these is the Lavalon Tourist Information Centre.  It’s a cute little open-air hangout overlooking the water, where local men eat pisang goreng (fried bananas) and discuss local politics, dogs sleep, cats prowl and tourists resign themselves to the fact that they’re in Kupang and it probably won’t be too long before they’re out of there, so they might as well just have a beer and relax.  

We thought we’d get an afternoon snack to help wile the hours away.  And although the food took approximately 45 minutes to make, when it finally came it was surprisingly fresh and tasty.

Mie goreng – fried noodles, some choy sum and fried onions with your choice of tomato or chilli sauce.

Hot chips and fried eggs. 

The chips were reminiscent of the best homemade chips your mum ever made.  Topped off with a couple of cold Bintangs, we were very happy travellers by the time we walked out of there.

Kupang also has a really cool night market selling all sorts of foods out of very funky little carts.  We went for a walk through the market, still too full to eat anything else, but the visual display alone ended up being one of the highlights of the whole trip.

I won’t mind too much if I have to spend a night in Kupang next time.

A rest stop @ The Art Kafe Bar, Ubud

Walking up and down Monkey Forest Road, the decor of this cafe had caught our attention a few times with its boho-meets-nana-meets-shabby chic (or whatever) deco.  We thought it could be interesting, so we popped in for a juice one day.

Upon perusing the menu, I was delighted to find a little history of the owners and their story of how they came to open the cafe...

We did enjoy the artsy fatsy feelings.  And I’m sure you will too.

Omelette for brekkie @ Bar Luna, Ubud

“Chic and cheerful” is a phrase that comes to mind when I think about Bar Luna. It’s a place where the cool crowd hangs out, but it is still down to earth enough that you can feel at home, it’s not overly expensive and the food is excellent.  Wade and I were here for 2 meals in a row – dinner and brekkie the next day.

The dinner was a selection of mezze-style dishes – breads, olives, dips, grilled mushrooms, smoked marlin pâté as well as grilled fish and chips.  We may have over-ordered just a tad.  But it all tasted sensational, especially the mushrooms.

Brekkie started off on a high and then just got better.  The latte, although a bit strong for me, came with a little round of shortbread which I very much appreciate first thing in the morning.  It helped to offset the strength of the coffee, but it also helped to quiet my grumbling tummy until my brekkie arrived.

And I loved the tiny glass of iced water that came with it, too.

Wade had a strawberry lassie, bursting with fresh strawberry-ness...

... with scrambled eggs, mushrooms and tomato relish:



The only downside to this dish was the fact that the scrambled eggs were weeping, but they were otherwise excellent.  The mushies were spongy and full of flavour and the tomato relish had a good sweet/smoky balance. 

I had an omelette with tomatoes, spinach and fetta:



This brekkie made me smile and smile.  I loved the salty fetta with the eggs and the tomatoes didn’t make it too watery, which is often a consequence of tomatoes in omelettes.  The sourdough bread helped to tip the balance of what constitutes a reasonable amount of food to eat at any given time, but it was too good to pass up.  And the tomato relish was relishious!  In fact, the tomato relish at Bar Luna has inspired me to make my own at home – or at least have some sort of relish or chutney with my eggs on a regular basis.  It’s becoming my new thing.

Tofu and veggie curry @ Dili Beach Hotel

Deep fried tofu and coconut cream make this curry significantly more calorific than the name suggests, but it tastes pretty darn delicious.  You can fool yourself into thinking that it’s good for you and you can try to pick out all the fresh veggies and fill up on those first, but the temptation of the tofu soaking up all that awesome curried coconut fat will be just too strong and you WILL BE DEFEATED!!

Steamed Ginger Fish @ Dili Beach Hotel

This would have to be one of the healthiest options at the predominantly pizza- and burger-focussed Dili Beach Hotel.  The tom yum soup is another good option, as is the garden salad, if you’re happy to eat like a bird.

This dish, with its crunchy, shredded veggies (carrot, ginger, spring onions) atop a portion of steamed white fish bathing in a gingery, peppery broth was a saviour for me during a four-week stay in Dili earlier in the year when every meal I consumed was from a hotel or restaurant.  I could very well have come down with scurvy if it wasn’t for this burst of nourishment.  The white rice it is served with adds substance to the spoonfuls of the broth that you slurp up at the end.

Cleansing.

Brekkie @ Lala and Lili’s Warung, Ubud

If it weren’t for the fact that I am fairly confident that this blog hasn’t reached epic readership proportions (yet), I would be reluctant to post this item, because Lala and Lili’s is one of those places you don’t want to get too popular, for fear it will be ruined. 

Located in the quiet village of Penestanan sitting amongst rice paddies (although these are quickly losing out to rapidly-growing villa developments in the area) Lala and Lili’s is a place to drink in the old school tranquillity of Ubud.    It’s another one of those unpretentious places with decent food, lovely staff and, in all honesty the BEST FREAKING FRUIT SALAD IN THE UNIVERSE!!!

Unblemished banana pieces, succulent papaya, luscious mango and juicy, sweet watermelon with a squeeze of lime and velvety yoghurt, this is my perfect fruit salad.  No crunchy pieces of apple destroying the equilibrium of the fruits’ texture and no annoying pieces of orange or mandarin curdling the yoghurt.  This is THE thing to eat at Lala and Lili’s (and in Ubud generally – for selected individuals only).  And get this:  sometimes they put AVOCADO in their fruit salad and IT IS DIVINE.  Its firm yet creamy texture defines avocado as the tropical fruit it should be.

The rest of my meal was superfluous, but still tasted pretty darn good.  It was a banana pancake made with wholemeal flour (good), but came with commercial honey (not-so-good; I would have preferred palm sugar syrup or maple syrup).

... and Wade had savoury scrambled eggs, which looked healthy and wholesome and tasted the same.



Drinks were iced coffee (me)

Cold, sweet, creamy...

... and a mango lassie (Wade)

Like a dream, but with mango in it.

Ripe for the picking.

Nasi Campur @ Warung Aja

I was walking down Monkey Forest Road one day and I saw this little place set back from the road in a nice garden setting.  It was closed at the time, but I had a good feeling about it. 

The next day I took Wade with me to find it again.  I was so glad I did, because I think it might be my new favourite place in Ubud (for Indo food, anyway).  I’m starting to sway towards the cute little local warungs rather than the bigger, more elaborate (and often expensive) places.

We’d been for a walk, so we needed refreshment.  I ordered an “es campur”, which translates as “mixed ice”.  My understanding was that it would be like a mixed fruit juice poured over shaved ice, but instead, this is what I got:

It was more like a desert, but it was really tasty and very refreshing.  It had sweet milk (not condensed milk, but maybe sweetened evaporated milk or maybe just sweetened normal milk) poured over the top.  Once the ice started to melt it did become a bit more like a drink.  But the coldness of the fruit made it a fantastic snack on a hot day.

For lunch I ordered nasi campur (lit: “mixed rice”), which is another of my staples in Indonesia. 



Food doesn’t come much prettier than that, does it?  Going clockwise, starting at 1 o’clock, there was sweet, crunchy tempeh with peanuts, at 3 o’clock: some sort of shredded chicken, 5 o’clock: a little tuna, onion and chilli sambal, at 6 o’clock there is an omelette, 7 o’clock: shredded, roasted coconut salad (maybe with dried fish), and at 10 o’clock: mixed vegetables and tofu curry (this was more of a dry curry, but the tofu had a good soaking in coconut milk).  Mixed all together with the rice and chilli sambal on the side, and I quickly found myself in heaven.

Wade had a beer and a satay tempeh dish with peanut sauce and vegetables (can’t remember the name now):

If you’re in Ubud, it is worth seeking out this cute little place.  It's about half way down Monkey Forest Road on the right hand side (heading towards the Monkey Forest).  There is a sign at road level, but the restaurant itself is set back a bit.

The $25-a-cup cup of poo

Yes, you read right.  A cup of poo for $25 (and that’s just an espresso shot). 

Bali Kopi Lubak comes from Asian Palm Civits (a small mammal – maybe like a possum), whose favourite food is the red, ripe, coffee cherry and they eat the fruit, bean and all.  But, the civits only take the best-quality beans, so after they are pooed out, the coffee producers know that the beans inside the poo are the best quality.

The result?  A load of bullshit, of course!  Even the big ANZAC biscuit and glass of water didn’t make it worth the money.

We couldn’t taste the difference, although I don’t drink short blacks, so I can’t really compare it to anything.   The texture was smooth, I will admit that, but it was supposed to taste earthy, with hints of caramel or chocolate, which I can confirm were NOT there (I know chocolate when I taste it).  It was quite bitter, but I didn’t feel like I’d be doing it justice if I added sugar. 

I wouldn’t mind trying a latte made with the beans, but I won’t be paying another $25 to find out.  We did manage to smuggle out a few beans that were left on a saucer, so I will give it a go at home and get back to you.

Banana bread @ Tutmak

Creatures of habit are Wade and I (actually, more Wade – I like variety! Adventure! Eating at a different restaurant for every meal!), we not only ate breakfast at the same place we had eaten dinner the night before, we even sat at the same table.  Ho hum.  The dilemmas of life in Ubud. (I believe these are what you call #firstworldproblems.)

I’m glad we did though.  This brekkie was one of the best.

Not too sweet and lightly toasted, the banana bread was as good as any I’ve had before.  The fruit – a trio of watermelon, red papaya and pineapple - perfectly ripe and sweet and the yoghurt on top was thick, creamy and drizzled with honey.  This amount of food was just right for me for brekkie.  I didn’t even get breakfast-table envy about Wade’s order, which, I will admit, looks like something I would normally get breakfast-table envy about, had I not ordered something so awesome myself.



That’s Wade in the background, looking like he’s waiting patiently for me to photograph his breakfast before he touches it, but his face was actually looking very annoyed because he couldn’t wait to rip into those deliciously golden potato rostis!!

Smoked Marlin and broccoli chowder @ Tutmak

The health kick continues...

This was the first of two dishes I saw in Ubud using smoked marlin.  Is smoked marlin generally an Indonesian specialty?  I have no idea.  But any smoked fish does it for me.  And teamed with the words “chowder” and “broccoli”, I could not resist. 

The soup came out in a medium-sized bowl (I would have preferred bigger, given it was the only thing I was going to eat).  The fish was flaked and its pinkie-smokiness made it somewhat meaty – in a good way.  The soup itself was rich in flavour and smooth in texture, although a little salty.  The broccoli – my favourite vegetable, alas, not available in Oecusse - was nourishing, and its little flowers burst in my mouth with more of the soup flavour that was hiding amongst them.   I think I would have preferred a little less crunch to the broccoli stems, but that was only a minor issue.

A major issue was the measly couple of bits of crouton served with the bread.  Come on, Tutmak!  Fill me up with a few more, please.  Those two bits of crouton tasted heavenly though, spread generously with the slightly-salted butter and then dipped into the soup to make little balls of fat float on the surface and the butter on the toast shine like melted yellow pearls.  Mmmm. 

French toast @ Casa Luna

Back to the familiar territory of the quickly-expanding empire that is Casa Luna (+ Honeymoon Bakery + Honeymoon Guesthouse + Casa Luna Cooking School + Indus restaurant + Bar Luna + an emporium selling giftware, and, by the time I’ve finished writing this, they will have probably opened up a yoga studio or a bookshop too).  They are effective self-promoters.

It is an empire, but it is a locally-owned empire, which doesn’t make it so bad.  Janet de Neef is an Australian woman who went to Ubud, met a Balinese guy, got married, had kids and started opening up guesthouses and bakeries and restaurants etc.  She has written a book called Fragrant Rice, which is about her life, her initiation into the Balinese culture, as well as her love of Balinese food, and it includes recipes.  I own that book, and I have to say that it has helped to bring a little bit of Bali to Timor, as many of the ingredients for Balinese cooking are available in the market in Oecusse.  

The food at Casa Luna is of a distinctively high quality and the owners have a pretty good ethos around using local produce and cooking everything from scratch, which is perhaps why I like it so much.

For breakfast on this particular day I ordered a mixed juice and French toast with yoghurt and palm sugar syrup.  Wade had a strawberry lassie:

The bread is made fresh at the Honeymoon Bakery and the palm sugar syrup is a good example of using a local product instead of importing, say, maple syrup.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the yoghurt was homemade either.  I enjoyed this brekkie, but it was a bit too heavy on the bread.  As you can see, they are really thick slices (but at least it’s not that sugary white sliced crap for a change), and it was a bit light on the “French” aspect - the bread was merely shown the egg batter.  But it wasn’t too bad.

I also ordered a Flores latte, which is like a chai latte, made with tea from Flores:

Again, it’s a good example of using local products – Flores tea, cinnamon, cloves, etc.  There is something in this tea that is overpowering though – I think it’s the cloves.  Maybe they could ease up on the cloves.

But, do you know what I really like?

A little biscuit served with my cuppa.  It is a nice detail that goes a long way.

Gado Gado @ Warung Semester

This cute little cafe at the bottom end of Monkey Forest Road (not far from the Monkey Forest) makes me feel like I’m in some quaint Nordic cafe in the middle of a heatwave.  It’s all a bit “Ikea”.   

The name “Warung Semester” indicates something to do with a university term, but as far as I know there is no university around here.  (A warung is a small restaurant.)

While the decor doesn’t scream “Indonesia!”, happily, the menu does.  In keeping with my “wholesome nourishment” theme, I ordered a mixed juice (no banana) and Wade ordered a vanilla lassie. 

Yummy.  Blended papaya, watermelon, orange and pineapple with ice.  The lassie was reeeeally good – just enough yoghurt tang nicely balanced by the exotic vanilla.

I had to order the Gado Gado, as it is my staple in Indonesia, and it was at this point that I remembered why anyone goes to Indonesia, ever:

Look!  It’s got DEEP FRIED, CRISPY SPINACH!! 

At first glance, when I saw the kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) drizzled over the top, I was disappointed, thinking, “Der.  Don’t they even know that Gado Gado is supposed to have peanut sauce?!”

But then I dismantled the tower of crispy spinach, juicy fried tofu, crunchy tempeh and hard boiled egg quarters and found a delightful little mound of steamed mixed vegetables (bean shoots, carrots, more spinach), tossed delicately through a creamy, peanutty satay.

It. Was. Perfect.

Wade ordered a tempeh burger with chips:

He remarked that it was pretty good, although I personally think they were a bit light on the chips (although they were delicious).

Set brekkie @ Ubud Aura

When you’re in Ubud, there are so many awesome places to eat, that you have to wonder if it’s really worth saving your money and eating at the hotel.  The standard breakfast at the Ubud Aura (our accommodation, appropriately named for its close proximity to other “new age hippy” hangouts such as the Yoga Barn (not that I’m knocking the Yoga Barn, because I LOVE the Yoga Barn)), is about on par with a good breakfast at a Dili hotel.  The omelette was passable, if not a little bland, despite it being tri-coloured.  The bread was sugary, white sliced CRAP (man, I’m OVER that shit).  The fruit was reminiscent of cold storage supermarket fruit – hard and flavourless.  Juice:  plain watermelon.  I might as well have just eaten an extra piece of watermelon from my fruit plate.

 But, you know, it’s fuel for the day, if that’s all you’re looking for.

I, however, am not.