A visit to the Bali Coffee Plantation and Luwak Coffee

Happy New Year to everyone! This is my last post from Indonesia.

We went to a coffee plantation to try the infamous Luwak coffee, and other coffee and tea products.

We were in for a treat!

The standard free tasting included 11 coffees and teas.

The plantation sells a delicious lemongrass ginger tea which was extremely spicy and delicious, along with roasted rice tea and roselle (a member of the hibiscus family) tea.

I fell in love with their coconut and “mochaccino” — the former was coffee with dried coconut, and latter was coffee with local cocoa.

No flavoring and just quality ingredients.

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Bubur Bali and Salak Tropical Fruit

Bali was truly a land of abundance.

The warm climate and its fertile land made agricultural products bountiful.

Our driver told us that the staples were coconuts — fruits were yielded from the trees all-year round, plus the whole tree was usable down to the leaves and trunk for furnitures and fabric.

Many food crops were harvested on the island: peppers, beans, mangoes, papayas, pineapples, ginger, mandarin oranges, passion fruit, mangosteens and coffees to name a few.

Most notably was rice cultivation.

There were rice fields every where: short grain, long grain, black rice, and the list goes on.

Large amount of the rice grown in Bali was exported to the rest of Indonesia.

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Interesting Eating Experience in Indonesian Forest

We had a delicious and interesting eating experience during the very last night of our stay at West Bali National Park.

We had specially ordered Nasi Kampung Pejarakan, roughly translated into “feast for the village of Pejarakan”.

When we ordered the dinner, the hotel offered the dinner at the gazebo, so I thought, “sure, we would give that a try”.

Turned out it was outdoor dining, romantically lit with candle lights.

The gazebo was perched just above water at the beach.

Throughout the dinner, we could hear water crashing, birds chirping, crickets singing.

The forest was very much alive in the dark and it was just amazing.

The other interesting “eating experience” was DH being the feast for the village of mosquitoes.

He had decided that he was going to risk it and did not put on bug repellent; we elected to bring the bug repellent with us.

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Mee Goreng, Nasi Goreng, Soto Ayam and Balinese BBQ Platter

Continued our days with big breakfasts of Mee Goreng, that was fantastically cooked with shredded egg omelette on top.

The noodle was cooked to perfection – just right chewiness and softness, and great flavoring to this quintessential Indonesian dish, of course, crispy and delicious Krupuk Udang, shrimp crackers as well.

DH got the Nasi Goreng, which was just as wonderful — fluffy light fried rice that was not greasy.

For dinner, we got this Balinese BBQ platter, and it was quite a treat!

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Eating Out in Bali, Indonesia: Nasi Kuning, Bergedel, Desserts

First time ever in Indonesia and we stayed in Bali.

I really enjoyed our stay there even though we were being more tourists without locals (as in friends) guiding us.

Food suffered a little unfortunately (the towns were not too easy to get around since there was no public transportation, and DH was still on crutches), but there were still plenty of highlights.

The best was starting our days with ginormous breakfast!

The very first day, I had bergedel with urab as the appetizer (yes, appetizer for breakfast!)

Bergedel was the round white patty in the middle layer in the picture — a potato and fish patty with soft, pleasant savory flavor hinted with onion and spices

Urab was a traditional Balinese cooked vegetable mix usually composed of bean sprouts, green beans and grated coconut and other spices, which was absolutely delicious and at the bottom of the bergedel on the plate.

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