Explore a classic Balinese kitchen, optional

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SINGARAJA (ANTARA) – The tiring three-hour drive from Denpasar seems worth it when you step into Dapur Bali Moela Restaurant (Moela Balinese Kitchen) in Lais Village, Tejakula Town, Buleleng District, Bali.

The classic atmosphere of the kitchen takes visitors back to the nostalgic times of Bali.

Traditional wooden doors are decorated with iconic Balinese carvings and other wooden decorations, adding a natural and artistic touch to this kitchen built in 2021.

The restaurant’s design concept is to highlight that Rice Village is an ancient village in northern Bali that needs to be preserved.

The restaurant is in the form of a hall, designed as a place where visitors can relax while dining.

Restaurant owner Gede Yudiawan is directly involved in cooking the restaurant’s spicy food.

The 43-year-old businessman is no ordinary restaurateur. He has collaborated with renowned Indonesian culinary expert William Wongso on a number of projects in Indonesia and abroad.

No wonder Yudiawan retained the title of head chef even though his previous restaurant, Badung District, was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Traditional Kitchen
Moela Balinese Kitchen is located on the beach and specializes in Balinese seafood.

What’s unique is that the kitchen doesn’t have a fixed menu, but instead creates dishes based on the daily catch of fish by the village’s fishermen.

The restaurant mainly obtains seafood such as fish, octopus and squid, which are then processed immediately.

Therefore, customers need to order food online one to two days in advance so that the restaurant can prepare the ingredients.

The chef, who has three children, prepares the seafood herself using typical Balinese herbs and spices sourced from surrounding villages.

He was wearing a white koko shirt and his hands were expertly cutting the fish with a special sharp knife.

Sometimes he wipes the sweat from his face with a towel draped over his shoulders, while the billowing smoke from the paon, a traditional kitchen, envelops him.

Most dishes are prepared using traditional methods, such as grilling satay (Indonesian grilled meat), cooking rice and processing fish using stoves and wood fires.

As for firewood, Yudiawan can easily collect it from his garden and several places around the village.

At the same time, customers can directly witness the cooking process and immerse themselves in the typical aromas of a traditional kitchen.

Chef Yudiawan and his six assistants prepare the restaurant’s signature dishes such as timbungan fish (bamboo-grilled fish gravy), lilit (wrapped) satay, fish satay, and lawar octopus made from grated coconut, octopus, vegetables, Balinese spices and long pepper.

Voluntary Pricing
What makes this restaurant even more interesting is the voluntary pricing: customers can pay whatever they want for their meal.

Chef Yudiawan described the payment as a donation and said he did not feel it was a loss.

“I cook what I can cook, and people pay what they can afford. If I set a price, they will have high expectations. I want the village to be free to develop its potential,” Yudiawan told ANTARA.

His philosophy is consistent with his other role, that of a Hindu priest serving devotees at temples in Lais and Penuktukan villages in Buleleng district.

In order to fulfill his religious duties, he often had to close the restaurant to serve people during major religious ceremonies in the village.

Yet, it is this uniqueness that attracts people to his restaurant to taste the dishes he prepares.

Regina, a customer from Denpasar, was willing to travel long distances to enjoy the unique experience of this restaurant.

She said she first learned about the restaurant from a friend’s post on social media.

“I was very curious so I took my family to visit and the food turned out to be very delicious. I would love to come back to this kitchen,” she said.

After finishing their meal, Regina and her family put 100,000 rupiah ($6.65) notes into a jar marked “donation.”

The restaurant’s unique concept also attracted university student Buwana Marhenta, who used it as the basis for his thesis research.

During the month-long study, the student explored the relationship between customer experience and satisfaction and donation payment methods.

Food Tourism
In addition to food, the restaurant also produces traditionally processed brown sugar.

On average, the restaurant uses about 100 litres of palm sap to produce up to 10 litres of brown sugar every day.

The kitchen also makes arrack, a traditional alcoholic drink made from palm tree sap that is boiled in a stove over wood, with the steam passed through bamboo before being collected and stored in bottles.

The restaurant produces an average of 24 bottles of arak per day, each containing up to 750 ml, totaling about 18 liters.

Santhi Serad, head of I Love Indonesian Food Community (ACMI), said not every business player is brave enough to adopt the restaurant’s unique concept and voluntary pricing.

She added that besides exploring the potential of the village and preserving the culture, the concept also introduces food tourism, a type of tourism that is not widely known to the public.

Celard elaborated that gastronomic tourism has a broader scope than culinary tourism, which focuses solely on tasting the typical foods of certain places.

In addition to tasting food, food tourism also provides visitors with indirect storytelling by explaining the ingredients and history of the food, she said.

Visitors can therefore understand the added value associated with the food they try.

“In food tourism, visitors come to a place not only to taste the food but also to learn about its story,” says Serrade.

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