Eat Like Ushi

I'm not quite sure what time the Ubud market is open. Websites list different things, from opening at 5am or sunrise to closing at 9am or 6pm. Most seem to say that the locals shop in the morning and this is the best time to attend.

Breakfast was the agenda as well as curiosity that led us to walk through at the unholy time of 7:30am. There was a nice amount of activity without being crowded, with all types of fruits, vegetables, some meat and fish and even trinkets and flowers being sold. Luckily toward the end I found a couple of nice stalls with a lady combining a wet rice, vegetables, peanuts, beans and sauce. The persistent surrounding 4 or 5 people making orders was reassuring that this was a good place to order from.

The level below street also brought us to someone cutting up fresh jackfruit and a couple of chicken sate grillers (both of which were a little dry but tasted nice).

I also tried the local specialty of snakefruit. It looks like an acorn surrounded by snake skin and really tastes quite unappealing. I think bitter sweet is the closest I can describe.

Enjoy the sights, smells and foods.

Bebek Bengil, the dirty duck diner. An institution that everyone who lives or has visited Ubud seems to know. What is less known is that if you have enough people and book a day in advance, the smoked duck is the main dish to try here. Otherwise they have an endless number of fried ducks you can order on the day, but variety is good.

After a nearby massage to fill a casual 90mins before the 630pm dinner, the heavens opened up at precisely the time we started walking along Monkey Forest road. The warm rain drenched down, soaking us all from head to torso to shoes. The 15mins walk through rain, darkness and along the roads kept us focussed at the endgame - mega duck dinner.

We finally arrived and were led to a private table right at the back, where rice fields surrounded (although it was too dark to really appreciate the natural surroundings). As I had pre-ordered 2 smoked ducks, we perused the menus looking for some extras. What we didn't appreciate so much was that each smoked duck also came with 6 chicken sate, vegetables, steamed rice and 2 glasses of Balinese punch. And when they say that each smoked duck order feeds two people, they really mean two people as a full meal. My parents had misguided me that the Balinese ducks they had eaten here previously (the fried ducks) were small and one person could easily eat one to them themselves. Hmmm.

- Whole Balinese Smoked Duck (in traditional way with spices wrapped in betel nut leaf)
- chicken sate
- Gado-gado (steamed mixed vegetables with tofu, egg & peanut sauce)
- Bebek Bengil (half an Original Crispy Duck steamed in Indonesian spices, deep fried for a crispy finish)

Both the smoked and crispy fried ducks were good. The smoked duck was a much bigger meatier bird, with soft delicate flesh. The crispy duck was thin, small and perhaps had a bit more flavour (although nothing compared to the fried pork at Ibu Oka 3). Opinions were divided as to which duck was preferred - I'd have to say I think the fried was my choice. But I wouldn't hesitate to eat both again. The chicken sate and gado-gado were fillers for the main event. The dipping sauces were delicious (and hot!) and went brilliantly with rice as a dish of their own.

Next time I would order 1 smoked duck to share between 4. Consider 1 smoked chicken (also needs pre-ordering) if you have 4-8 people. Top up with Bebek Bengil orders of 1 between 2. Nothing else required.

PS. when saying Dirty Duck, you must automatically think of the Black Eyed Peas - dirty bit, do do doooo... (as horrible of a remake as that is).

Balinese suckling pig is one of the specialties to try. Ibu Oka is listed on practically all the Ubud food recommendation lists I read, including some in email form forwarded to me by friends of locals. I suppose it ends up being one of those well touristed places for good reason - they have damn good suckling pig.

There are two locations - a smaller closer to town one that seems to be the one that is listed everywhere. Additionally there is a larger restaurant not too far away, where all the pork is cooked and then transported to the smaller venue. Luck should have it on this day that our driver took us to the mothership (I wanted to go here preferentially and the driver thought the other was closed, even though it actually wasn't).

The menu is quite simple - suckling pork, fried pork, pork skin or pork sausage.

The special (rice, vegetables, pork roll, fried meat, sausage, skin) is the generic sampler plate to try. On this occasional it actually also came with some kind of boiled jackfruit (had none of the sweetness associated with usual jackfruit I'm used to). After sampling each of the porks, the best is really the fried meat with its exquisitely delicious savoury flavours. This was possibly the most flavoursome morsel of everything eaten in Bali. The suckling pork meat is nice also, but I think I like the Spanish version better.

In any case, try for yourself. I will again.

Finding a first meal in Ubud and Bali was going to be a challenge. Considering the arrival time and efforts of the travel group and precise weather and ease of walking around was unknown, I figured something last minute should be adequate. The most anticipated places of mine were already scheduled - Ibu Oka (lunch only) and Bebek Bengil (the next night dinner) - so a simple generic warung seemed like a good idea.

Walking from the accommodation along Jalan Bisma, we expected that the approximate location Google maps showed us along Jalan Raya Ubud would make Bogasari easy to find. Sadly it wasn't - on the bright side we ended up eating gelato first and getting a short glimpse at the town. Funnily enough we found Bogasari (with some help - although most locals had never heard of it) located exactly opposite the entrance to Jalan Bisma.

- gado gado (mixed vegetables with peanut sauce, tofu, bean cake, boiled egg, shrimp crackers)
- mie goreng kampung (fried yellow noodle, chicken & shredded vegetables served with fried egg, acar, chicken sate, shrimp crackers)
- pepes ikan laut (grilled marinated fish wrapped in banana leaf served with vegetable urab, steamed rice)
- sate campur (grill pork, beef, chicken skewer served with rice & peanut sauce)
- tuna sambal matah (grilled tuna, vegetable water spinach Balinese pelecing, steamed rice, served with Balinese raw sauce sambal matah)
- egg lawar (with pork, white rice)

Everything was nice. The gado gado was a slightly more upmarket version than the street types, which some may prefer for cleanness, but I think in the end the street types are more to my liking. Mie goreng was one of my favourites for the trip. Delicious and chilli. Pepes and tuna were probably the dishes I least liked due to chewy fish texture, however the pepes at least had some nice flavour mashed into it.

When in anywhere, find gelato. It isn't a difficult concept to understand the logic behind. Especially when the weather even at night is 25C and 75% humidity. Ubud supposedly has two gelato places of note - Gelato Secrets and Gaya Fusion. Gaya Fusion is a taxi trip away whereas Secrets is conveniently located towards the top of Monkey Forest Road.

Our very first Bali eat ended up being here, before finding dinner. To be honest we initially couldn't find the particular warung and so ended up snacking here to keep us going. The gelato is fresh, some texture, and there was honestly a couple of small ice crystals in amongst 5 flavours - but I'll forgive them for that.

Flavours included as expected the local fruits such as a rich smooth mango and something I haven't seen before dragonfruit. Great for any time of day or night.