In Reply to: Why Do you thimk Asian Standards are posted by The Rooster on Thursday, 27. January 2005 at 10:25 Bali Time:
that because everyone from Australia/US/England/etc. compares the price and quality of food in Bali to what they pay/get at home, the only comments we can really make is that the food in Bali is cheap and good. She is used to the high quality and cheap prices in Malaysia, and therefore has not necessarily been aided by most of the food reports on this forum.
Of course, much depends on where you choose to eat. But in my experience, I would say that KL has slightly cheaper food than Bali, and it is generally of a higher quality. You don't always get the big Balinese smiles in Malaysia, but the service is generally friendly and efficient.
Melaka and Johor Baru are probably cheaper than KL, though I didn't spend a lot of time at either place. The seafood in JB is awesome, and about 1/5 the price of what you'd pay in Singapore (where everything is shockingly expensive if you're used to Indonesia and Malaysia -- AU$15 for a stubbie of Tiger... get outta here!).
Food, like just about everything else in Bali, is about twice as expensive as the same quality in Java. Jakarta is probably more expensive than most places, but still much cheaper than Bali, and there are plenty of places to find a bargain.
As for hotel room sizes, Bali does seem to have generous rooms, even in cheaper places. In Singapore there's barely enough room for the bed. Maybe I was lucky in Malaysia, but the room I had in JB was big enough for a game of soccer (cost about AU$14), though the place was fairly run-down. And the Nova in KL was pretty big too -- the bed was big enough to fit five people at one end and the seven dwarfs at the other (oh, the dreams I had, sleeping alone in that thing -- I was Snow White and went to bed feeling Sleepy and Bashful... somehow I woke up Grumpy).
But I think she quoted one price as US$62. For that, I would expect some dancing space. In fact, I would rather go to a cheaper hotel and take three rooms -- one for sleeping, one for entertaining, and one for performing scientific experiments on the children who cried on the plane all the way to Bali. Well... a man can dream, can't he?