Balinese Feast

Saturday night and we had more friends staying with us to entertain. We had spent the day sightseeing with them, and had worked up a healthy appetite, so we donned our glad rags and jumped in a cab to see what culinary pleasures we could seek in the fun and festive atmosphere of Clarke Quay.

We ended up at Bayang, the Balinese restaurant. We had been here once before, on our first week in Singapore (pre-blog days!) and remembered it being exceptionally good, but for one reason or another have never returned – mainly because their outside tables are invariably full. Tonight, as we were fairly late, we got lucky and an outside table was ours.

There were five of us, so an ideal opportunity to sample a range of their dishes, which of course we did, with great glee, starting off with some awesome Lamb & Chicken Satays,

Chicken in Pandanus Leaves,

and Deep Fried Squid – all of which were fantastic.

We followed these up with Black Pepper Beef on a hot plate,

Lamb Chops with Spices and Sweet Chilli Sauce,

Garlic Prawns,

and Charcoal Grilled Fish.

These were all equally as great as the starters, particularly the Fish, which got completely destroyed… and I think I’ve just found myself another favourite restaurant… (the list is getting quite long now!)

So a delicious, and massive, feed… the perfect energy fuelling required for our next stop, China One… where we managed to pull out some particularly embarrassing moves on the dancefloor, thanks to their resident band… definitely getting too old for that malarkey...


Bayang - #01-05 Blk A Clarke Quay, River Valley Rd

Awesome Indonesian

I have read great things about Pagi Sore on the pages of my fellow floggers websites (as if Blog wasn't a stupid enough word, we now have to call a food blog a Flog?!) and have tried to get Mr Greedy Glutton to meet me there for lunch for ages, as it's close to his office. Well what do you know, he only ended up there with work colleagues last week! So on Friday night after a few after-work beers I insisted we go, so I could see what all the fuss was about.

I remembered that the dish of choice seemed to be the Cumi Bali (that's chargrilled Sweet & Spicy Squid to you and I) but unfortunately it was off the menu. So we settled for the Chicken version - the Ayam Bali. Let me tell you, any disappointment at not being able to try the squid flew straight out the window as soon as we tasted this little baby. The boneless chicken is marinated in a sweet & spicy sauce, then grilled over charcoals, resulting in sweet, sticky, juicy, smoky mouthfuls... just awesome.

The Beef Rendang was also excellent (if a little cold),

and we also tried the Turung Chao Chio - Brinjal in a salted bean sauce, which was okay, but I've heard the Kang Kong Belachan is the veggie accompaniment to go for.

Even the rice was good, the banana leaf it was served in keeping it nice and sticky.

In short, the meal was fantastic and I can't wait to go back... two new favourites in one week... what a lucky greedy glutton I am...

Pagi Sore, Far East Square - http://www.pagi-sore.com/pagisore/index.asp

Lunch with a View

There was just time for lunch before we had to head back to the ferry and back to Singapore, so we decided to retrace our steps to Treetops, so that we could enjoy the view that we hadn’t been able to experience during dinner. I’m so pleased we did. As lovely as the restaurant was at night with all the candles and the breeze, it really comes into its own during the day when you have an endless view out to sea and can really appreciate being up in the treetops.

As we were about to leave Indonesia, we favoured the local options, ordering up a Chicken Curry and a Beef Rendang and the chef kindly complemented our theme with an amuse bouche of a mini beef sate in a peanut sauce, served in a shooter glass.

The curries were beautifully presented on serving trays with accompanying pickles and chillies and the curries inside were just delicious - one of those meals when you know you are full and should just. stop. eating. but you keep going back for just one more mouthful. Although they could have done with a bit more heat... we can handle it!

A great end to a great culinary holiday…

Treetops, Banyan Tree, Bintan – http://www.banyantree.com/

Lunch at the Lotus Cafe

We normally avoid eating any other meal at a hotel restaurant where breakfast is served, but we made an exception for the Lotus Café. Its high ceilings, open windows with birds flying overhead and large menu focusing on local Indonesian dishes made it worth breaking the rules for.

I love a good Nasi Goreng and this one was as good as I’ve had – and not only for the presentation. It came on its own cast iron serving unit that allowed for the main rice dish and several accompaniments – namely (from the left) Vegetable Pickle, Chicken & Beef Sates, Prawn Crackers, Fried Chicken and Chilli Sambal.

The problem with a big lunch like that though is it does make you very sleepy… ah well, lucky we were on holiday and had a sunlounger to snooze on…

Lotus Café, Angsana Resort & Spa, Bintan – http://www.angsana.com/