In Reply to: Cooking classes posted by Lele on Tuesday, 2. February 2016 at 17:55 Bali Time:
Hi, my last trip (just back Monday) I committed to doing a few different things. One of them was to do a cooking class. I looked up a number of recommended ones, read the reviews and decided that I would book Dean Fisher's. It was a fantastic day. We were picked up at the Bintang Supermarket by Dean himself. We (group of 13 from various parts of the world) then went to the main markets in Denpasar. whilst shopping for items we would need to cook, Dean explained what they were, how they could be used, etc. We were probably there for just over an hour. This wouldn't be a good place for vegetarians due to the number of shops selling animal products (?). After this we had a quick stip at a coffee house before we went to Dean's house to do the cooking. His house is located in Sanur and is very impressive. The ground floor is dedicated to the cooking class. It has a bar with free flow Bintangs and Mohito cocktails from the time we stepped through the door. There is a large wooden table which would seat approximately 20 people. Also a number of satellite tables which we used later to prepare the food. Dean took us through all of the spices that are traditionally used in Indonesian cooking. We then, if you wanted to get hands on, helped prepare duck, chicken, fish, octopus, squid and the spice bases that they were cooked in. Once all of the food was cooked (in our case it was close to 5pm) we sat down to eat the feast. We were also given a lychee cocktail, plus another which I can't recall to have with out meal (at this stage I had had a fair number of mohitos). This was followed by a dessert of black rice pudding, berries and coconut ice-cream. OMG. After this we paid for our lesson ($130 AUD) and were given a cook book with the recipes in. We had a fantastic fun day. It was long, but definitely worth going to. This is something you could do by yourself - the Bintangs and the mohitos had everyone chatting. Dean is a great host and chef. I really recommend this cooking class.