Wet Saturday and Javanese food in Seminyak Bali

Saturday morning was another wet affair with torrential rain pouring down.

I must say it makes sleeping easy, that seems to be a common thought around the world.

I noticed a 2 inch leech had crawled up my downstairs wall and was waiting for me so I put some salt on it to slow it down. In the tropics there are all kinds of goodies waiting in the rice paddies and forests and this rain flushes some of them out.

For lunch today I went to Warung Batavia on Jl. Raya Kerobokan just past the Bypass. They serve Javanese food which has plenty of sweet (manis) sauces and is generally less hot (pedas) than Sumatran food (masakan padang) or some of the other Indonesian styles.

I choose water spinach, bbq chicken, plain rice and another vegetable dish in a yellow sauce. My bill was 14,000rp. Batavia attracts westerners and Indonesians mainly from Java I suspect. I haven’t seen too many Balinese locals in there partly because of the taste and partly because of the price. Batavia has a decent selection of items and I think someone from Java would feel at home eating here.

I learned the other day there is a difference between soto (soup) and sop (soup). I always thought soto ayam was chicken soup (which of course it is) but locals differentiate between the 2. Chicken sop apparently would have chicken, salt, pepper, white onion, whereas soto ayam would have many things including spices to make it more tastey. Maybe I’ll throw a soto ayam party for my Indonesian friends with some raw pork and peanuts on the side for my Balinese friends.

An Indonesian cooking course is in my future I can see.