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Travel Secrets eBook for Charity:Water

May 18, 2010

A few months ago I participated in a game of blog tag over on The 3 Star Traveler which allowed me to share some of my best kept travel secrets. This fun project was initiated by Katie of Tripbase and after the huge response from travel bloggers it was decided that the tips would be turned into an ebook published by Tripbase and used as a way to raise money for charity.

The Travel Secrets ebooks launched today! They are full of helpful travel tips from experienced travelers and cover just about every continent around the world. My tips for the morning journey in Ubud, Bali and the Patara Elephant Farm in Chiang Mai, Thailand were included in the Travel Tips book, and my tip for Ilha do Mel in Brazil is featured in the Worldwide Beaches book. However, you all might be interested to know that there is a Foodie Travel book as well!

The ebooks are free and for each download Tripbase will donate $1 to Charity:Water, an organization that works to bring freshwater wells and clean drinking water to people in developing nations. One hundred percent of public funds donated to this organization go directly to water projects.

I’m thrilled to be a part of this exciting project! Please take a moment and click on the badge below to download a Travel Secrets eBook. It costs you nothing, but a little space on your hard drive. As a result, not only will you have an excellent travel resource at your fingertips, but you will be helping to support a great cause.

I helpedpeople get clean water
led by Tripbase

More on Ubud – Crispy Duck and Black Rice Pie

November 24, 2009

In Friday’s post I mentioned that there were more exciting foodie things to cover from our adventures in Ubud, Bali; the first of these being our visit to Bebek Bengil, or the Dirty Duck Diner. This was recommended to me by Selba from Selby’s Food Corner. If you haven’t seen her post about the history of the restaurant, be sure to check it out.
What a great recommendation, although I had no doubt it would be a good one. Not only does this restaurant serve fantastic food, but it has a huge open air seating area in the middle of rice fields. It was so good and had such a nice atmosphere that we went twice during our stay.


Our first visit was for lunch, and while we didn’t need reservations, I can certainly see why it was recommended. We got there about 11:30 a.m. and by the time we left the whole place was full. For our starter I had a roasted duck salad. It was one of the best dishes of our trip for me. The duck was coated in a sweet sauce and topped with peanuts and the plate was beautifully decorated with mango, cucumber and orange.


My husband got one of his favorites, fried calamari. This version came out looking like onion rings and was cooked to perfection, nice and tender.

For our main course we couldn’t pass up the Crispy Duck, the dish the restaurant is known for. It was unlike anything I’ve had before. To say the duck was crispy is an understatement. It was almost like duck jerky and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It was an incredibly unique dish, different from anything else we had on our trip.

It came with some super spicy onions and peppers, and those delicious Balinese veggies topped with grated coconut.


On our second visit the dish I chose caught my eye because of an experience we had the morning before. As I think I’ve mentioned, we took a trek with a guide through a village outside of Ubud to some home compounds, an art school and rice terraces. During this time I took the opportunity to ask a lot of questions about food.

As you can imagine rice was a popular topic and after having a crop of sweet potatoes (the white variety) pointed out to us on the hike I asked how they were used. The guide told us that they are often chopped and mixed with rice for breakfast.

Well, it wasn’t breakfast, but the crispy duck with chilies came with sweet potato rice so I ordered it to give it a try. It’s funny because as a westerner I would automatically think – Gasp! Double carbs. I can’t eat that.

I say forget that thinking! Lots of cultures eat multiple carb sources with their meals and sweet potato and rice is a great combination. The duck was moderately spicy and I enjoyed having it all over again prepared in this fashion.


In all honesty, aside from these special meals I didn’t keep track of where we ate very well in Ubud. A few of the places we ate were highly touristy so while we knew we weren’t getting anything incredibly authentic, that was okay, because at this point in our month long journey we’d already had an amazing amount of true culture.

Take for instance my chicken sate served on a tiny grill. I did think this was a cute idea and I can’t complain about the chicken. We didn’t have bad sate the whole trip.


In addition, I simply couldn’t pass up this intriguing dessert – Black Rice Pie. Given the crust and whipped cream you could say this was westernized more than a little bit, but it was such an interesting dish and pretty darn good too. Black rice pudding had been sweetened and put into a pie crust, then served with caramel sauce. A few bites were enough and it has lead to some creative thinking regarding black rice and dessert.


For beer, we stuck with something somewhat local and this time tried Bali Hai. Trying beers typical to the area is one of our favorite parts of the traveling experience.


We didn’t make it out to a restaurant to try babi guling (suckling pig) but it was brought to us. Our morning trek included lunch and the place we booked it through gave us the pig as an option. They didn’t make it themselves, but got it from a local restaurant.

We jumped on the opportunity to try it. It was served wrapped in a banana leaf, although it could have been a pandan leaf too. I found it hard to distinguish between the two sometimes. There was rice, pork, crispy pig skin and a lot of chilies. It was an excellent.

To make our food journey in Ubud even better, during our time there we stayed at the Green Field Bungalows and one morning on our walk to breakfast we got to see a local farmer dropping of the produce for the day. There is always something about supporting local business and eating local foods that makes you smile whether you are at home or thousands of miles away.

Bebek Bengil
Jl. Hanoman, Padang Tegal
Ubud – Bali 80571
Tel: (62-361) 975489

Feasting for Hours: Rijsttafel in Ubud-Bali

November 20, 2009

I will admit that when we were initially planning our month long trip through Southeast Asia, Indonesia was an afterthought. We had first looked at a package deal for airline tickets which included Bali and that was really the first thought I had given to going there.
When we ended up purchasing our tickets independently we decided to keep Bali on the list, but we still hadn’t decided exactly where we should stay on the island. The research was a bit overwhelming and after hours of thinking about it we finally chose to stick with Ubud, the artistic and cultural center of the island.
I knew nothing about it before I started my research, but the more I looked into the area the more excited I got. When we finally landed and made the drive from Denpasar I could barely sit still. What a beautiful place!
We stayed outside the center which actually consists of other villages and according to what I’ve read is not technically Ubud. Of course, it was still a bit of a tourist area, but more secluded and quieter than the very center of town where market and temple reside.
We ended up having some very delicious and unique meals. It is difficult to say what my favorite food location was the entire trip, but Ubud and the Balinese and Indonesian cuisine we had there ranked high and that was something I certainly wasn’t expecting. I say that because it was the place I researched the least regarding food.
The meals we enjoyed resembled Thai cuisine in some ways, but had a character all their own. There were plenty of flavorful spices, lots of veggies and we ate a fair amount of duck as well.
Let me take you on the food journey we experienced our first night there.
I had seen Warung Enak mentioned in a travel review before we left so I had jotted down some information about it. (Warung is the name for a casual, usually outdoor, restaurant in Indonesia, by the way.) When we arrived I was surprised to find that the restaurant was practically next door to the bungalows where we were staying.
The Rijsttafel was what had my attention. I had wanted to try it from the second I read about it. This meal included not only foods of Bali, but dishes representing all parts of Indonesia. Ours included 18 small dishes split into four courses. Traditionally this meal could include up to 40 dishes served over three to four hours!
As a starter before the starter, we were given a small bowl of fried spinach leaves. Who knew you could fry spinach leaves! They were delicious, like eating a chip with a surprise of dark green veggie in the middle. We also opted for a local beer brewed just outside of Ubud, Storm Beer. I had the Bronze Ale and it was excellent with a nutty, crisp flavor.


Each selection came out in a small dish with enough for a couple bites for each of us. This was such a great way to try to so many foods! We were full by the end, of course, but not disgustingly stuffed.

The starter included four dishes. We began with the Tum Ayam from Bali, a chicken terrine on fern tip salad. On a hike I will talk about in a later post we were able to see these fern tips in comparison to the ferns that wouldn’t be eaten.


Next was the Lumpia Semarang from central Java. This deep fried spring roll included shrimp, bamboo shoots and fermented soy bean sauce. In this same picture to the right you will see the Empek-Empek Palembang from south Sumatra, a deep fried fish dumpling filled with egg and served with on sour palm sugar sauce blended with dried shrimp.

Finally, Asinan Jakarta from Batavia. Yam bean, carrot, cucumber, bean sprouts tofu which were tossed in chili rice vinaigrette and served with fried egg noodles.

On to the soup course. The Soto Betawi was from Batavia as well. It was a beef soup with fragrant spices. I’m not exactly sure what spices, but I can tell you there was kaffir lime leaf that is so delicious in Thai curries. I’ve found some recipes online so I will have to give it a try myself.

Now, onto the main courses and, wow, there were a lot! It was all served in this lazy susan turntable with a candle lit underneath it to keep the foods warm. There was also a beautifully carved decoration on the top. Now that I think about it, I can’t remember if it was a squash or papaya, but looking at the photo again I’m pretty sure it was papaya.


The main courses were served with rice from a bamboo steamer. Half was white rice and half was saffron yellow rice.


We began with the Sate Kambing from central Java. This was grilled lamb with peanut-soy sauce. Call me boring, but sate was my favorite dish while there. I just love the flavor of the meat, the sweet glaze combined with the salty peanut sauce and the simplicity of the whole thing. It was so delicious straight from the source while in Indonesia.

Next up was Woku Blanga Cakal Putri from Manado. This consisted of trevally (fish) poached in a broth spiced up with lemongrass, ginger, chili and pandan-lime kaffir leaf. Given that I already stated that my overall favorite of this stop was sate, this fish came in second for the meal.


The meal also came with lots of traditionally prepared veggies. Sayur Urab from Bali which is blanched mixed veggies topped off with grated coconut. In addition there was Plecing Kangkung from all over Indonesia which was a spicy water spinach.


Semur Tahu from Batavia was a stewed bean curd in soy broth. The bean curd was a common dish throughout our entire trip. It is something I had never had before, but ended up enjoying. Think of it as a tough tofu that has been fried and is crispy on the outside.

My favorite dish of this meal was the Pangek Sapi from Sumatra. This spicy beef stew with sweet basil leaves had simple flavors, but it really stood out among the rest of the dishes. The beef was so tender.


There were a couple other dishes I didn’t get good pictures because we were enjoying our dinner as the sun was setting. The Ayam Madu Katulistiwa from Kalimantan was a pan fried chicken that was marinated in coriander, cumin, honey and palm sugar. In addition, we had Sambal Goreng Undang from central Java, prawn cooked in coconut broth with snow peas, baby potatoes and quail eggs.

Are you full yet? Well, we still have dessert. Dessert with five different dishes to be exact.

Tamarind and coconut cream ice cream. Then Kue Lumpur from Kalimantan, a sultanas (raisins) and young coconut pancake with vanilla and chocolate sauce followed by Dadar Gulung from all over Indonesia which was a banana crepe filled with coconut jam and pandan (tree leaf) sauce.


There was Bolu Tape from all over Indonesia which was a baked fermented cassava cake (shown below) with raisins. As I’ve mentioned before, cassava is mandioca in southern Brazil and in all our time there I never saw it used in a dessert. Perhaps they use it for this purpose in the north of Brazil. I should look that up.


I saved the most intriguing to me for the last, Bubur Injin also from all over Indonesia (shown above). This was a black rice sticky pudding with jack fruit and coconut cream. At first bite I immediately noticed how it lacked an overly sweet flavor. This was actually a very good thing. I got so used to the desserts in Brazil being so overwhelmingly sweet that this contrast was nice. I could be completely wrong is this assessment, but from what we tried, I got the impression that in Bali most of the desserts are only mildly sweet.

That was one long list of food and honestly there was nothing served that we didn’t like. I was going to continue with the rest of our good eats in Bali, but I think I’ll save it for a part 2. I need to tell you all about our visit to the Dirty Duck, a recommendation for Selba at Selby’s Food Corner.

There is a lot more to come on the foods of Southeast Asia! Hopefully after the first of the year I will begin making my own versions of some of our favorites.

Warung Enak Bali
Ubud Bali
Phone: 62 361 972911
Getting there

Travel Snacks

November 3, 2009

The trip seemed to pick up pace towards the end and left very little time for photo managing and post writing. Here I sit in San Francisco geared up for the Foodbuzz Fest and finding it hard to believe our Southeast Asia trip is behind us.

What an amazing trip it was. Honestly we could have not asked for anything better. We have no complaints and we had more good travel luck than I think any one person is entitled to. Flights were smooth, we have our luggage (hopefully I’m not speaking too soon as I do still have to get back to KY), and no missed reservations. Pretty incredible.

I still have so much to share with you so as I get back into a kitchen next week and return to recipes I will also be continuing recaps of our foodie adventures.

I’ve been struggling a bit with how to organize it all. I didn’t want to simply provide a number of breakdowns for each location so you’ll be finding some of our favorite meals from specific places as well as combinations of food favorites from our entire trip.

As you can imagine there was quite a bit of snacking going on. In fact, I’m so full I’m beginning to worry how much room I have for this upcoming fest. We find it very difficult not to pick up an item that looks intriguing while we are out and about. Good for interesting blog material and trying new flavors, but it felt like we didn’t stop eating the whole trip!

There were so many great snacks throughout the places we visited in Southeast Asia from breads, to desserts to drinks. Some flavors were familiar such coconut others were new to us such as red bean and black sesame.

Looking back there was only one flavor I didn’t like. Those of you that know that area of the world can probably guess what it was. Yep, Durian, but I’ll explain more about that in an upcoming post.

Here were a few of the snacks that got us through the day, as if our unbelievable meals wouldn’t have tide us over.

We loved the bread shops, especially in Hong Kong. You pick up your tray and tongs and choose until your hearts content. My favorite was the green tea bun with red bean paste, soft and sweet with only a mild beany texture. My husband’s was the peanut waffle. You just can’t go wrong with waffles regardless of what culture you are in.



I had my share of drinks that could be more accurately called meals. The ice fruit shakes in Thailand were so simple, yet so tasty. I absolutely loved the jackfruit shake – a cup full of jackfruit, ice and some sugar syrup.


A fresh mango juice with sagu, or tapioca pearls, in Hong Kong. Very similar to a bubble tea, but much thicker and more filling with chunks of mango.


A coffee drink with soy bean curds in the bottom from the weekend market/walking street in Krabi, Thailand. Again, like a bubble tea. I love those chewy bites.


Avocado Coffee at the Greenfield Bungalows in Ubud-Bail, Indonesia. Catch that? Avocado coffee. Yep, I was intrigued too. They told me it was a bit of avocado blended with coffee, slightly sweetened with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. It was served cool, not exactly cold. I could get hooked on them for sure.

An item that seemed very popular in the area was squid balls and we got these at the night market/walking street in Krabi, Thailand. Basically like a baked corn fritter with pieces of squid then garnished with some sweet soy sauce and another white sauce that was like mayonnaise. These were fun to try, but not something I’d go for often.


At that same market we also picked up some steamed buns filled with a savory mix of chicken.


A real highlight was the ice cream and I think we tried it all in Singapore. I find the way they serve them on the street to be pure genius. They use two wafer cookies and slice the ice cream off in a thick rectangle. So simple, but so much better than scooped in a cone.


The first is red bean and the second, yam. Both had a flavor that I would almost assimilate with the strawberry. Kind of odd, I know, but that is what it tasted like a first bite. As different as they are from our standard ice cream flavors in the US, I found them both to my liking. You just have to get over the pieces of bean in the red bean.

We found this Azabu Sabo Hokkaido ice cream several places around Singapore. It was smooth and creamy like gelato, but in lots of traditional Asian flavors. The first wasn’t so specific to Asia I guess, but had that wonderful balance of salty and sweet – sea salt and caramel. The next day we tried the black sesame. It was nutty and sweet with a slightly grainy texture. At first I didn’t think I liked it, but it is a flavor that grows on you.

Pad Thai from the street vendors in Thailand is a snack I could eat every day for a long time before tiring of it. The noodles, sprouts and egg, not to mention the peanuts and red chili are such a delicious combination. We got this one from a cart about half way down Khao San Road in Bangkok.



Not far from that, I spotted this Roti stand and watched as the hardworking lady behind the cart rolled it out then fried it up with a very generous amount of butter. We ordered the lemon sugar and it was fantastic. Sweet and tart, it wasn’t overpowering and allowed the flavor of the bread to come through.

Thailand might be one of the best places in the world for the after midnight snack. We had the awesome experience of being shown around by some friends – expats from Australia who live and work in Bangkok. After hanging out at a street bar on Halloween night and then making a stop at the Aussie expat hangout we took a short cab ride for food. Tucked in the corner of a side street was this little place, or cart rather.

He was incredibly busy and the area was packed with locals. We enjoyed fresh noodles with pork wontons floating in a savory broth and then topped with sliced pork and crab. It was delicious, the best pork of the trip in fact. Did I mention it was a whopping $2? The price of Thai food almost makes you feel guilty for enjoying such wonderful dishes at such a low cost.


See what I mean. I’m not sure we ever stopped eating. And you would think after all that I would no longer be hungry, but just looking at these photos makes we wish we were back there enjoying it all over again.

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