Its time to celebrate some of my favourite food in Bali.

First up is Ikan Laut which is fish from the sea, with nasi (rice) topped with Bawang goreng (fried onion), plecing (water spinach), sambal merah (red spicy sauce) and sambal matah (raw spicy accompaniment), served on banana leaves – mouthwatering!

Fish served on a banana leaf

Go on… eat it with your fingers – who needs cutlery?

Then there’s my favourite take away, sate complete (it puts burgers to shame, is a fraction of the cost and rather more nutritious, methinks!)

Sate complete

it is bakso (spicy meatball soup) that you eat at the same time as the rest of the meal, which consists of fish sate (the sticks are made from the spine of the coconut leaf), tuum (made from fish and cooked in banana leaves) and sayur urab (vegetables cooked with grated coconut) with peanuts – there’s none of this ‘eating soup as a starter’ non-sense.

And what about the Balinese speciality, Babi guling (vegetarians look away now)

Artistically presented Babi guling

We’d call it a hog roast and here it’s always cooked for special ceremonial occasions and in this picture you can see a few, of the many, offerings beside it.

And below is sate and a number of types of lawar in take away mode

Different kinds of lawar and sate

Back to fish, which I eat a lot of here, this is Gurami from the volcanic lake at Mount Batur.

Fish with salad and veg

So very tasty, especially with Gede’s Kintamani style sambal on the top.

I just love the way Gede has artily ‘decorated’ this fish.  It tasted as good as it looked.

A well presented fish from the volcanic fish farm

How about lumpia which are Balinese spring rolls in a delicious peanut sauce.

Here I am eating lumpia from brown paper while sitting on a black sand beach (Bali has both black and golden sandy beaches).

Lumpia (spring rolls)

I like to snack on bayam goreng.

The bayam plant grows in my garden and goreng means fried – so the leaf is battered and then deep fried, like vegetable tempura.

Tasty snack – bayam goreng

Here’s a primarily vegetarian dish… tofu and tempe, cooked to perfection, with a side salad (I say ‘primarily’ veggie because on this occasion there was some chicken added to the dish! – but I do often have it without the meat, honest!)

A vegetarian dish – with a little chicken thrown in for meat lovers!

Meat lovers can get some great meals here, usually chicken, pork, duck and beef – although I haven’t seen much lamb in Bali, they don’t seem to have sheep in this part of the world.

Back to the vegetarian theme, can you guess what this pineapple contains?

Guess what’s hiding inside the pineapple?

a salad, of course:

Yes, there really is a salad, hiding inside my pineapple

Can you spot what is missing in this picture?

Where is the knife?

A fork and spoon, but no knife.

No problem… the Balinese wouldn’t usually have any cutlery at all, so I think myself lucky that I have a fork and spoon.  Although, you know, sometimes I also like to eat with my fingers (only the right hand of course!)

When I was in London my favourite food was Thai… and I still like Thai food – but Balinese is better!

These are just a few of the many wonderful dishes, maybe in another post I will concentrate on drinks, or desserts – mmmm yum!

Meanwhile, in case you were wondering where most of those fish come from – it is here:

Fish farms in the volcanic Lake Batur at Mount Batur