Pepes Ikan in Seminyak Bali

Monday lunchtime Anna was buzzing around in the kitchen. On one of my forays downstairs to get more coffee Ika asked me if I wanted some lunch. I never eat at home unless I’m cooking it, Javanese homecooked food is too far into the ’stinky / greasy’ end of the spectrum for me. This time Ika pointed out that Anna was cooking barracudu, the long fish with razor sharp teeth. I had an appointment in the afternoon and I was jamming to get thinks finished before then. Finally around 1.30pm I went downstairs to check out what was in the pot. Anna had fixed a dish called Pepes Ikan, where the fish was cut into chunks, combined with tomato, garlic and other stuff and steamed, wrapped in banana leaves. With this we had steamed rice and kangkung, the stringy green vegetable.

It was pretty decent, but I had to be careful of the many bones. Anna is a great pembantu, she takes care of Jevon, does the washing, cleans the rooms, gets her husband to prune the trees and do the grass, AND cook lunch.