Ubud, Bali, Indonesia Travel Guide
About Getting Around Attractions Hotels Eats & Nightlife Essentials & Practicals
Ubud Food
Naughty Nuris Warung Grill in Ubud
Below is an overview I wrote in the South Bali Food section. Perhaps it was because Ubud, Bali is a place where you cherish things more, but I found the food in Ubud a helluva lot more scrumptious than in Kuta and Sanur. The good chefs on Jalan Monkey Forest and Jalan Raya Ubud definitely cater to the Westerners, so expect your taste buds to be treated by a variety of international dishes. I’ll say upfront that my favorite restaurants were –
I’ll say this: I love Balinese coffee, Kopi Bali. The coffee beans, ground into a fine powder, are scooped and poured directly into cups of hot water and dissolve like magical coffee elixir. The result is a robust, slightly thick flavor. And no, it’s not instant, burnt coffee (instant coffee in the states is pretty nasty). Even thought there’s no filtering, Kopi Bali is the best coffee I’ve had.
I was, however, expecting a little more exotic food in Bali than I had. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the black rice pudding, which was my favorite dish in Bali. I was a bit surprised that Bali offered much of the same kinds of food as you would find in Thailand and the Philippines.
The main fare in Bali are of course rice, which is Indonesia’s staple food. You also will find nasi goreng, which is fried rice and a fried egg, mie goreng, which is fried noodles and eggs, gado gado, an Indonesian salad with peanut sauce, lumpia, satays and nasi campur, which is steamed rice this time with some sort of meat and vegetables. I have to say that the soto ayam soup with vermicelli, eggs and vegetables is delicious.
As for sweets, I liked the black rice pudding, which is made of coconut cream and palm sugar. It’s often wrapped in a banana leaf. What else would you expect from a tropical island but fried bananas!
When you order full-on meals, you’ll get a soup and a mish mash of satays, veggies, rice and more. Oh, the meals usually come with pinkish prawn crackers.
In Bali, you can eat on the streets like you can in most other places in Asia (e.g., Bangkok, Manila). You’ll see street vendors cooking satays and other items. There are upscale, “tablecloth” restaurants. A special restaurant type in Bali is called a warung, which is an open-air, informal, kind of roadside cafe.
In the following pages, I list and review some of Ubud’s best restaurants.