More on Ubud – Crispy Duck and Black Rice Pie

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