Restaurants in Bali (continued)

Another Muslim restaurant I found in the Kuta area is the Kebab restaurant, located on the main Kartika Plaza street in the cluster of shops north of Waterbom, the water theme park. This restaurant serves typical Turkish food, bread and meat being their signature fare. It is quite well patronized as it is located within the shopping and tourist belt.

One late afternoon as we were walking back from the beach, we stopped at one restaurant close to our hotel called the ‘Warong kopi Aceh’. Warong in local language is a food stall but this one is more than a food stall. It is a proper restaurant. It is located at the junction of the street just before approaching the Hotel Saphir Mabisa Inn. I found out later, from one of the hotel guests, that it is owned by a young man who graduated from the International Islamic University Malaysia. They serve good food, the fusion type mostly, and also some traditional Aceh dishes and drinks concoction. They serve good coffee too. It is nice to sit at the patio sipping coffee while watching the people go by.

Another good coffee place is ‘The Coffee Shop’ located a few doors away from Warong Kopi Aceh. This shop also serves good coffee and also light meals, cakes and confectioneries. They also have patio seating where people can relax over a cup of coffee.

We went shopping at the new Kuta Mall called the Centro, located on the main Kartika Plaza street. We got hungry and stopped at a restaurant called Bali Colada. It is located at the back of the mall and overlooking the beach and the sea. It has very nice view. I thought ‘advantage of the view’ would be added to the bill, but no. the prices they charge were very reasonable. It has good seating arrangement, ambience and is air conditioned too. They serve fusion food and mostly seafood as ingredients. We had pumpkin soup, mixed seafood salad, a seafood in rice dish, coffee and flavoured tea and all for about USD10.00.

I asked the hotel reception to suggest a good seafood restaurant for us. They suggested the Jimbaran Seafood restaurant, located in Jimbaran, south of the airport. The restaurant can pick us up and send us back to the hotel at no extra charge. One evening we took up this suggestion. The restaurant is located by the beach and is very nicely located to view the sunset. All the dining tables are on the beach. I found that I had to get up from my chair several times throughout and pull it out of the sand as I kept sinking, the chair I mean …… However this is one of those restaurants where the ‘advantage of the view’ is added to your bill as I found their menu (very) pricey. We had grilled fish, prawns and squids with rice and the bill came close to USD40.00. Quite on the upper end compared to other restaurants in Bali, hotel restaurants aside. We had dinner by candle light too as the area had a temporary black-out just after we arrived and power came back just as we were about to leave…. talk about coincidence….. !! It was a romantic dinner, yes but we were eating fish! Looking for fish bones using our tongue in the dark was really a prickly job heh heh! They also had a music group basking good live music going from table to table. We did not plan to go back however, as I thought once was enough for the experience.

On our tour of the north of Bali we stopped at a restaurant in Kintamani, at the peak of a mountain and a very touristy place, where many tourists visit the volcanic mountain and a nearby lake. The restaurant serves buffet and is suitable for Muslims. We requested for their menu and found that the individual menu cost as much as the buffet rate, hence we settled for the buffet. They serve quite a wide variety of buffet dishes and only charge USD5.00 per head, a far cry from the Jimbaran prices, given its location high up in the mountains!!

Other than the above restaurants we also patronized other coffee shops and ice cream outlet, “Haagen-Daaz” specifically. We also found out that the fast food restaurants, MacDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut are all suitable for Muslims. So it was not a hassle finding suitable restaurants. We were apprehensive before we came to Bali but clearly it was un-founded apprehension. Again, if in doubt, ask the cabbie…….

MKI Ramblings Unlimited,
Petaling Jaya