Eating in Bali
I love Thai food. It’s still my all time favorite type of food and Thailand for 2 months was a real treat. However, I also like a variety in my diet and in Thailand finding delicious non-Thai food at a reasonable cost is harder than you’d think.
Bali has been the opposite. It’s harder here to find authentic Indonesian than it is everything else. I think the place might be flooded with Australians just because of the food. It’s amazing and cheap.
So far here are some of the best places we’ve found:
- Rumours: Great steaks and overall good diverse menu. Cheap. Located with Ultimo on Soi Oberoi.
- Ultimo: High class italian restaurant with huge menu and very reasonable prices. 4 course meal for $10-15. Duck ravioli that you want to order again for dessert. Super busy so show up early or late.
- Mannekepis: Belgian bistro on Seminyak road. Decent prices and the best meatballs.
- JP’s: Good vibe and nice create your own breakfast menu.
- Seafood restaurants on Jimberan beach: 30 minutes out of Kuta, this little bay has 10 back to back seafood places on the beach. $15 bucks for a kilogram of fresh jumbo prawns, another $15 for a lobster with red snapper, clams, squid and king prawns. Definitely the best seafood deal on our trip. Do not come to the Kuta area and miss this short drive.
- Trattoria: Beside Rumous and Ultimo – also good but just not as good as the other two.
- Sarpinos Pizza: Down in Legian, and attached to a hotel the buy one get one free deal is a steal at $6 for two small gourmet pizzas.
- Bali Cafe: Also on ‘eat street’, this place is my favorite morning place to grab a breakfast and read a book. For $5 you get a variety of cereals, 2 eggs, bread, a latte, a fresh juice and a chill atmosphere.
Places on our ‘do not go’ list:
- Mykonos: Bad greek food.
- Bobbies: The first sign should have been the fact the dining area doubled as a parking lot. Horrible.
- Crusoe’s Island: Cool that the whole place is made of huge bamboo but the food stinks.
- 90 degree restaurant: In Kuta, this place was cheap but everything we got was bland without taste.
For high speed internet (which we’ve had to chase often):
- Chat cafe: on corner of Bali Deli road and Sunset road, this place is 24 hours is usually fast and quiet.
- Black Canyon Coffee: what has been our home away from home, this place makes crazy delicious speciality coffees and slushies for a couple bucks a pop. The internet is as fast as we’ve been able to find and there is plenty of parking.
As Irene noted today, we’re in for a shock to our system when we get home and can’t go out for a 4 star meal for $10.
