Bali Food and Drink

Drink lots of fluids. The equatorial sun takes out a lot from you and dehydration can be a serious problem. Symptoms are infrequent urination, deep yellow/orange urine, head aches.
Tap water in Indonesia is not potable and it should be brought to a full boil for ten minutes before being considered safe. Indonesians are themselves fussy about drinking water, so if you’re offered a drink it is almost certainly safe.
Most Indonesians do not feel they have eaten until they have eaten rice. This is accompanied by side dishes, often just a little piece of meat and some vegetables with a spicy sauce. Other common items include tahu (tofu), tempe (soybean cake) and salted fish. Crispy fried tapioca crackers flavored with prawns and spices (krupuk) usually accompany a meal.
No meal is complete without sambal a fiery paste of ground chili peppers with garlic, shallots, sugar, and sometimes soy sauce or fish paste. Fruit, especially pineapple and papaya provide quick relief for a chili-burned mouth.
Cooking styles vary greatly from one region to another. The Sundanese of West Java are fond of raw vegetables, eaten with chili and fermented prawn paste (lalab / sambal trasi). Minihasan food in North Sulawesi is very spicy, and includes some interesting specialties: fruit bat wings in coconut milk, sambal rat, and dog. In the more isolated parts of the archipelago, the food can be quite plain.
In most Indonesian restaurants there is a standard menu of sate (skewered barbequed meat)–most common are ayam (chicken) and kambing (goat), gado-gado or pecel (boiled vegetables with spicy peanut sauce) and soto (vegetable soup with or without meat). Also common are Chinese dishes like bakmie goreng (firied noodles), bakmie kuah (noodle soup) and cap cay (stir-fried vegetables).
In most larger towns you can also find a number of Chinese restaurants on the main street. Some have menus with Chinese writing, but usually the cuisine is very much assimilated to local tastes. Standard dishes, in addition to the bakmie and cap cay mentioned above, are sweet and sour whole fish (gurame asem manis), beef with Chinese greens (kailan / caisim ca sapi), and prawns sautéed in butter (udang goreng mentega).
Indonesian fried chicken (ayarn goreng) is common and usually very tasty-although the local -grown chicken can be a bit stringy. Then there is the ubiquitous nasi goreng (fried doe); the special (istimewa) comes with an egg on top and is often served for breakfast.
There are restaurants everywhere in Indonesia that specialize in food from Padang, West Sumatra. This spicy, and very tasty cuisine has a distinctive way of being served. As many as 15-20 different dishes are displayed in the glass case in front of the restaurant. You tell the waiter what you want and he sets a whole stack of the little dishes in front of you. At the end of the meal, you are charged for what you have eaten and any untouched plates are put back in the case.
As tempting as fresh vegetables may be, avoid eating garnishes or raw salads unless the vegetables are air-flown/imported.
The beers available in Indonesia are Bintang and Anker, both brewed under Dutch supervision and rather light (perhaps appropriately for the tropics). With electricity such a precious commodity, however, in out-of-the-way places the only way to quaff it cold is to pour it over ice.

Balinese Specialties
Balinese specialties include roast pork (babi guling) in which the pork is rubbed with turmeric, stuffed with spices and roasted over a spit, and roast duck (bebek betutu), where the duck is stuffed with vegetables and spices, wrapped in banana leaf and either smoked or steamed.
Balinese brews include tuak (palm beer), arak (palm brandy) and brem (sweet rice wine).

Balinese Fruits
Tropical fruits are plentiful and delicious. Bali is known for salak, which has a brown snakeskin covering three segments, two of which contain a large brown seed. It tastes like a cross between an apple and a walnut. Manggis (mangos teen) is pure heaven hidden within a thick purple-brown cover. The juicy white segments almost melt away. In season November to March.

Warung Bali (street Stalls of Bali)
Restaurant kitchens do not necessarily have healthier food preparation procedures than roadside warung. The important thing at a warung is to watch and judge whether or not the cooks inspire confidence. Warung rarely have a supply of running water, so beware.
The first portion may not fill you up, so a second portion can be ordered by saying ‘Tambah separuh” (add half portion). But only the price is halved. The amount of food is more like three-quarters. Finish off with a banana and say ‘Sudah” (I’ve had plenty, thank you). The seller will total up the prices of what was served you and ask you how many krupuk, tempe, etc. you added; so keep track. The total will come to between Rp3000 and Rp7,500 (30 cent to $1.25).

Vegetarianism
Say “saya tidak makan daging” (I don’t eat meat), “tidak pakai ayam”(without chicken) or “tidak pakai daging”(without meat). Dietary restrictions are very acceptable and common due to the various religious and spiritual practices involving food. However, finding food that truly has no animal products is a problem. Often meals which appear to be made exclusively of vegetables will have a chunk of beef or chicken in them to add that certain oomph. Tempe (fermented soybean cakes) and tahu (tofu, soybean curd) are excellent sources of protein).