The crowd on Gili T definitely skews young and leans towards the "full moon" party type. Everyone there seemed to be about 20, gorgeous, had a hot body and most guys had tons of tattoos. People here looked like they were backpacking for a while, didn't have a real job, and spent most of the day on the beach and most of the night partying. Ahh, youth. Ok, so in terms of food, there are actually quite a few options on the island. Our first outing was to this hole in the wall called Kiki Nova (it's inside the art market in the center of town). When you first walk in (and I use that phrase loosely as there isn't really a store front to walk into), you aren't sure if any of the food is sanitary. All the food is homemade by this lovely woman in various pots and they are just sitting outside all day. When you order, you basically point to all the different pots of food that you want a la Nasi Campur. Every now and then she will tell you what they are but generally you kind of have to guess and take a leap of faith.
I had picked a little bit of everything (chicken, hard boiled egg, beef curry, eggplant, corn, greens, fried dough, rice, glass noodles, and this a roll type dish). Even though I am a pretty adventurous eater, I was slightly hesitant at first. But my first bite was amazing! You could just tell that all the food was freshly homemade with no preservatives. The spices and flavors were all natural and it was best to just eat everything together in one big messy pile. I couldn't really tell what was in side the soft roll (in the front of the picture) but the inside was this sweet filing that I actually didn't love. It turned out to be one of the best meals I had on the whole trip and all for 20,000 Rp (or $2).
For dinner on our first night we decided on The Beach House which is actually a hotel that has a large outdoor/beachside restaurant. This one seemed to have the most people there, so we decided to give it a try. It's on the southwest part of the island which has tons of restaurants, most of which have a similar outdoor beach feel. Many of them also have these outdoor BBQs where they have tons of fresh seafood that was caught that day, sitting on ice, and then you basically go up and pick out your fish/shellfish and they grill it on site (the picture below isn't actually from The Beach House but it had a similar layout).
Of course I had to try the seafood BBQ. It's totally right up my alley
and it made me wish that we had something like this at home. I walked up to
the catches of the day and selected a huge piece of tuna (65,000 Rp or
$7.50) and also a grilled corn on the cob (15,000 Rp or $1.50). I asked
them to grill the tuna medium rare, so it shouldn't have taken so
long. I guess there must have been a back up because it took a while to
come out, but when I cut into it, it was definitely medium rare. I
couldn't believe how big the piece of fish was. Something like this at
home would have cost at least double if not triple. It was served
simply with a lemon wedge. My one complaint was that the sauce they served with it was way too buttery and kind of ruined the essence of eating a fresh piece of fish. Deanna and Aarti both got a pasta that they said was way too oily and greasy. Seems to be a running theme.
We also ate a small lunch at Locanda (North end of the island). We had originally wanted to eat at Karma Kayak but inadvertently sat in a bungalow at Locanada which was literally right next to it. Oh well. The food there is very local, limited and simple. I had the Soto Ayam with rice (plus a coke cost 65,000 Rp) which is basically a clear noodle broth with glass noodles, small slices of chicken and sliced egg and tomato. It was a bit weird to be eating a hot noodle soup when I was dying of heat but overall the food was fine. As I said, it was basic and simple food. It's what you'd expect from a hut in the middle of nowhere. I have all of these ingredients at home and probably could have made it myself. We were a bit bummed that we sat down at the wrong place because we did hear that Karma Kayak had really good tapas food (I know, totally random).
Our next place for dinner ended up being a disaster and was put on the list of "Things we can't talk about on the trip" (the two other things we weren't allowed to talk about were work and the duration of our flight). One of the workers at our hotel told us that the Indian food at Pesona (right on the main drag of the street) was pretty good so we decided the give it a try and give ourselves a break from Indonesian food. I ordered the fish tikka and buttered naan and Aarti and Deanna got daal and a cauliflower dish. Everything was going fine (I didn't mind my fish tikka but I did think the buttered naan wasn't good - they used that weird sweet butter you put on bread on the naan and it just tasted weird together). Aarti and Deanna didn't like their food much but one of the reasons we all had such a horrible taste in our mouth (no pun intended!) was that when we went to pay for the meal, we had put out the exact amount in the bill fold. The waiter came and "counted" the money but then quickly pocketed 100,000 Rp without us really noticing at first (although later we did all say that something fishy was happening right before our eyes). Next thing we know, he's telling us we owe them 100,000 Rp even though we knew that we had paid the correct amount. We were so angry and didn't know what to do, but since we were in a random country that we didn't know, we didn't want to argue (and in the grand scheme of things it was only $10 but it was the principle of it) and just gave him another 100,000 Rp. It was such a shitty situation. So lesson learned, always count the money in front of the waiter yourself instead of handing the money over to them.
On our last full day, we took a side trip to Gili Meno (the center island) which was my favorite. It was the total opposite of Gili T in that there was probably 50 people max on the whole island and there were about 4 "restaurants" total. We had a quick lunch at Mallia's Child since it was by the ferry station and we had a 3pm boat to catch. Again, the food here is very basic and simple. I got the chicken satay (with a coke, 65,000 Rp) and it was surprisingly decent. There were lots of satays on the plate and basically anytime you dip something in peanut sauce, it's hard to go wrong. I didn't see them make it but you do see lots of people on the streets grilling chicken on a squat, picnic-like grill, so I assumed that's how my food was made. Funnily enough, the best chicken was this fried chicken drumstick that ended up on Deanna's plate. As a "favor" to her, I ate the drumstick and it was delicious! The skin wasn't too fried but it had a nice crisp to it and the meat was so freakin juicy. I was so surprised by it and wished I ordered a dish that had more of it. I also tried Aarti's pumpkin curry and the pumpkin was basically a sweet potato and the dish was also surprisingly good.
On our last night we had wanted to go to Blu D'Mare, which we had heard from other travelers was the most amazing Italian food (even compared to pasta they had had in Italy). So we were super excited to try it. But it was on the far Northeast corner of the island and by the time we got there it was 8:30pm. There was a group of 3 girls who literally walked right in front of us and got the last walk-in table. Of all the restaurants on the island, this is the one that required reservations. We were pretty bummed. So we walked around for a bit and ended up at the Cafe Gili and I got the snapper fillet (64,000 Rp). While I do like my fish medium rare, this one was almost uncooked in the middle. Unless it's tuna or salmon, I generally don't like other fishes that rare but we were so tired and hungry that I just wrote it off and prayed that I didn't get sick the next day. It did come with a really flavorful garlic, onion, and chili sautee on top of the fish and had the fish been cooked a bit more, it would have been a top dish of the trip. And I ended up fine the next day.
Next stop Seminyak...
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