Where We Ate:
We ate well and we ate Plenty! We were only saved from weight gain by walking lots and lots. We were delighted to find that as a family we could well for a very reasonable price which meant we did not think twice about eating out every night. In all places except Beach Melati Apartments, our breakfast was included. After ten days of this, I personally was ready to head off to Bintang supermarket to buy bread and cereal and have a few more 'normal breakfasts' Of course we also had to buy the beer and tonic water for pre dinner drinks and just a few nibblies for us all!
As far as restaurants go, we tried to eat somewhere different each evening or lunch. Only one disaster, which was our first night in Bali, when we decided to go locally to Fat Yogi. There were three of us and we ordered a pizza, a salad and a pasta dish. The pizza came after about 20-25 minutes. 20 minutes later the salad arrived without most of the ingredients I would consider essential to a Caesar salad, and drowned in dressing. After another 40 minutes the pasta had not arrived, and we decided to call it quits as my son was really hungry by this time, and we had asked about a food a few times with little interest from the staff. I called it quits and paid the bill minus the pasta, when lo and behold, the pasta arrived! He took one bite, declared it disgusting and we walked out, at the same time as another table who had received nothing of their order and also tired of waiting. No plans to return there again.
Almost everywhere else was great, with plenty of choice to meet the eating preferences of my family, which ranges from a love of spicy food to conservative and unadventurous. Some of the places we ate were :Lunch at Bali Colada and also Black Canyon at the back of Discovery shopping centre, Indo National, Wayan and Friends (for both lunch and dinner - the baguettes at lunch are good), Basil Leaves near Kuta Townhouses, Seaside in the first week.
Then in Ubud we tried the restaurant at Ubud Village Hotel. Food was ok, but because there was almost no-one in the restaurant, there was no atmosphere at all. Lunch at Café Moka in Ubud was great - the best Baguettes in Bali! 14 year old son said the hamburger was good too. Dinner that day was at Batu Waran(Spelling?) They also have a restaurant in Jl Kartika Plaza. Cinta was also good and as it is somehow connected to the previous restaurant, we got a 15% discount. This was good as we had already decided to go there. The prices were not cheap, but not too expensive but the added tax and service push the price up a bit.
In Ubud we ate three meals at the Rambutan cottages - two lunches and a dinner. All good, but not gastronomically pushing the boundaries of new tastes or adventure. However, all plates were empty at the end of the meal. We also ate one night at Waru Bali on the beach front, which we enjoyed too. This was very reasonably priced.
On returning to Legian we tried lots of places in our area, including La Monde (the one in Padma Utara near the Coffee Shop), the Coffee Shop itself, Flying Piano, (Rum Jungle Rd) (where we enjoyed the trio who roam around to play to you, messing up the words of old Beatles songs!) and Yutz. On the beach front we went to Ocean Breeze for a drink one sunset, Zanzibar, Lanai (OK but not exciting). Also enjoyed music when eating at Joni near the corner of Jl Padma and Padma Utara. At the request of my son we returned to Indo National, and had a second meal at La Monde on our last night due its proximity. On this night we were entertained by the slightly zany 'Fugly' who gave us most of his life history in about 15 minutes and stressed upon the kids the need to work hard at school so they didn't end up working as a waiter like him!
95% of the food we ate was good. We chose middle of the road restaurants and although we would have liked to venture further or try more up market food, we never seemed to get around to it. So La Lucciola etc are still on the list for next time. However, for five people, we were ordering two or three starters to share, having a main course each, plus two or three drinks each, including beers, milkshakes and soft drinks or juices, and occasionally one or two would have dessert. A typical bill would be between 300,000 to 500,00 Rp. If we had cut down on what we ate we could easily have come in under 300,000. However, we felt to eat for less than A$10 per person for two courses plus drinks was pretty good.
Next Installment : What we Did....