Bali: The Food

 

Since Bali is mainly Hindu and not Muslim, it's much easier to find (well prepared) pork there than it is in Jakarta.  In fact, the Balinese dig on swine.  One of the Balinese specialties, as seen on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, is babi guling, or roasted suckling pig stuff with spices and brushed with coconut water to caramelize the skin.  These tiny babi guling joints are everywhere, and now I know why: spicy shredded pork, crispy skin. Mmm.

All kinds of spicy crispy pork, plus some garlicky spinach-esque stuff.

Served with rice, more spicy sauce (the ubiquitous sambal), a brothy soup and some tasty satay.

Ben and Erin, feasting on babi guling.

Sweaty after a ride on the motorbike, we liked our babu guling.

In addition to the tasty pork, we ate a ton of fruit... juicy mango, the hard-to-find mangosteen (my favorite and I haven't had it for 11 years since I was in Thailand!!), super ripe papaya, tiny bananas, gooey passionfruit... so good. 

Not the froo-its of the de-ville.

We had lots of beers (Bintang being the norm, closely followed by local Balinese brew Storm when we could get it and San Miguel on occasion), but we also tried some local booze, arak (which apparently may have been a risky venture, but we all seem to be fine).  We mixed it with mango juice.

It came in a cool bottle.  How could you say no?

My favorite drink of our trip, though, seemed very unassuming when Ben and Tim ordered it ("Comes in a coconut.  You want coconut?  I think yes." said the waitress), but came out looking like the girl drink drunk monstrosities pictured below: 

Bigger than Ben's head.

Tim loves girl drinks.

Finally, we ate a ton of great seafood.  Shrimp, squid, red snapper, tiger prawns... See some particularly fancy looking examples below:

Stop looking at me, garlic grilled red snapper!

Tiger prawns in chili sauce.  Long legs!