Porcine Head-to-Tail Eating in Nusa Dua

From left to right:
Babi guling ala bakas - Rp 50,000
Babi guling campur - Rp 50,000
Sate babi - Rp 40,000

The practice of using every bit of the animal is not some fancy new-fangled phenomenon in Indonesia. And eating these lesser than prime cuts is also not something that’s extraordinary. It’s a normal everyday occurrence, examples of which can be found all over the country. Like sop kikil (broth with soft cartilage from cow’s feet); or babat hitam (beef tripe cooked in spices); or the ubiquitous soto daging (beef and intestines in tumeric broth).

In Nusa Dua, Warung Bakas specialises in pork, spit-roasted pork to be exact. This place leaves the infamous Babi Guling Ibu Oka in the dust.

naughty ribs in ubud, bali

The sound of charcoal crackling, flames flaring up to meet the dripping fat, the sweet smoky smell of sticky ribs on the grill. It was enough to make us salivate. Three ribs please!

nyuknyang OR bakwan?

When our uncle told us what nyuknyang was, I asked, “Aren't they just bakwan?”

holy moley! holy smoke!

Three words: Oh My Gawd!

depot mie gadjah mada, noodles with soul

Homemade noodles & wontons, freshly made every day

The first restaurant I went to when I visited Malang, East Java after a long 5 years away was Depot Mie Gajah Mada. And there's a good reason for it.

bakwan kapasari

Bakwan kasar - Rp 4,000 each
Bakwan halus - Rp 4,000 each

Surabaya in the eastern part of Java island is a metropolitan and typically densely populated. It is also the only city with an international airport in the vicinity of Malang. By vicinity, I mean about 2-3 hours drive away.

phill bean yukgaejang

I remember a time when there was practically one korean restaurant in Perth and when looking for a korean grocery store was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. If I had a hankering for great kimchi, bad luck, there's no chance in hell of finding it.

pelangi bali crab fried rice

The trouble with living somewhere other than where you grew up is that you'd go through periods where you'd miss a certain type of food so intensely that you cannot think of anything else but.

naughty nuri's bbq spare ribs

Naughty Nuri's infamous spare ribs. Are they really what they're all cracked up to be?

ibu oka 2 suckling pig

Babi guling (english: suckling pig) is such an iconic Balinese dish. You cannot leave Bali without trying them. And the mother of all babi guling is none other than Ibu Oka's.

bumbu bali nasi campur

Gedang mekuah - Rp 70,000

Gedang mekuah is a bowl of spicy green papaya and seafood soup. It was my appetiser when I went for lunch at this restaurant called Bumbu Bali.

spaghetti meat-a-balls

I’ve always been afraid to cook spaghetti bolognaise from scratch. I'm not entirely sure if this trepidation comes from either the lack of confidence that it can be tastier than pre-bought bolognaise sauce (I know! What a foolish notion) or just from a lack of confidence, period.

kimchi jjigae 김치찌개

Kimchi jjigae (hangul: 김치찌개) is a korean stew, to be eaten together with rice, containing spicy kimchi, pork or seafood, tofu and other delicious things. This recipe of kimchi jjigae is adapted from Beyond Kimchee's recipe, which I'm quite proud to say turned out beautifully.

neua pat bai grapao

David Thompson is one of the most respected chef in Australia. He made his name by getting the backing of the Thai government to re-establish authentic Thai food in Thailand, to fight the onslaught of fusion food in the country. He has a comprehensive Thai recipe book called Arharn Thai, but I was totally intimidated by it, so I never got around to buying it. So, when his new book Thai Street Food was published, I said to myself I definitely have to get that book.

My first thought was that surely street food would be easier than full-on Thai food to cook. I was sort of right, I think. Some recipes were totally do-able, like the neua pat bai grapao. But, there are quite a few pretty complicated recipes in there with a lot of ingredients. I was intimidated for about a minute, but I thought, it's totally time for me to get a bit of a challenge. To get me started, I picked this pretty straightforward recipe, with manageable amounts of ingredients.

hawker's cuisine sambal kang kong

I have actually blogged about Hawker’s Cuisine before. But since it was early last year and it was when I was still using my old format, with the claustrophobic 4-picture-in-a-frame photo, I feel like a brand new post is warranted.

I have been to Hawker’s Cuisine a few times since then and I haven’t been disappointed with the food yet. The service, on the other hand, is another matter. When you get a nice waitperson like I had this time, you’ll have the best service. But, when you get a rude one, well, I would just say to myself, I’m here for the food. Such are Chinese restaurants, you have to take the good with the bad.As with typical non-high-end Chinese restaurants, the décor was an afterthought. A few lanterns here, Chinese paintings there, an aquarium, bright orangey-yellow chairs, bright colour wall and presto. It’s definitely not a first date kind of restaurant, it’s more like a 30th date sort of place.

pak loh chiu chow express noodle with pork ball in soup

Although I have been eating non-stop during my flight from one continent to another, I was still hungry as I touched down in Hong Kong. I think it's because the meals in the plane, eventhough they were frequent, they're not very big portion-wise. This was my quest in search of my next meal.

That's when I stumbled upon Pak Loh Chiu Chow Express. I queued up, which didn't take me that long to get to the front, and ordered the noodle with pork ball in soup. I ordered it because the dish on the picture menu looked mild but appetising, just the right thing for my upset but hungry stomach.

wonton noodle

OK, this may be a cheat version of wonton noodle (pangsit mie), but I can't help but to love it. I had such a nostalgic craving for a bowl of this noodle one day, I decided to reconstruct it. Obviously nothing can beat the original, but this was the closest I can get to the one I usually eat in my local noodle shop back in my hometown. I have to warn you this recipe uses store-bought wontons and noodle.

classic pork roast with crispy skinned potatoes

As with yesterday's post, this is one of those long overdue recipes that I've been meaning to make. I mean what can be more classic than a roast, right?

I got the base recipe from the internet, which turned out to be adapted from the infamous Joy of Cooking cookbook published by Irma S. Rombauer in 1931, which I then further modified to my liking. I truly believe that, with a collection of everybody's brilliant mind, we can do just about anything.

I had so much fun making this, but I did make a few mistakes. So I have made a few changes in this recipe to fix that.

charles inn dining room english style breakfast

The morning after our intimate civil ceremony, we had breakfast at the Charles Inn Dining Room. As a guest in the inn, we received the standard complimentary breakfast, which included bagels, cerals, etc. Every guests were also served a breakfast platter, which had yummy strawberry muesli yoghurt, cuts of cheeses, croissant & pain au chocolat, and smoked salmon with capers. All very yummy and got my taste buds going.

sweet soy caramelised pork

With the universities in Australia, engineering students have to have work experience of at least 3 months before they are allowed to graduate. I was one of those students in Kalgoorlie getting some work experience. I stayed at this residence / dorm called the Agricola College while the local students were home for the summer break and only us vacation work students were there.

Those three months consisted of students having lots of booze and doing lots of crazy things, except me of course, because I am such a good girl. One of the students staying there was this guy from mainland China, let's just call him mr. box for convenience sake (sorry I can't remember your name!). Since we were both very budget conscious, we seemed to cook together in the afternoons every 3-4 days. He cooked almost every day and cooked stir fry mostly, whereas I would cook something that I could store and eat for at least 3-4 days straight. I'm lazy if you haven't noticed.

One day I saw he had this pork dish that smelled absolutely marvellous that required almost no effort. There's a lot of waiting around, but I watched TV while waiting for the dish to finish. This recipe actually is very similar, yet quite different, to my grandmother's sweet soy pork (babi kecap). Since I don't know how to cook hers, I cook this one.

Cooked the pork without the fat for my husband who hates pork with fat, it just didn't taste the same to me, too dry, not succulent