Thu, 17 Feb 2000

Bali, a paradise for dining

DENPASAR (JP): Life is indeed too short to eat bad food. Bali is a paradise for dining. When you visit this beautiful island, you can find the perfect place to dine out.

Some of the best restaurants in Bali such as the Bali Inter- Continental Resort in Jimbaran offers a special seafood menu at its famous Singaraja Seafood Restaurant.

The restaurant offers a high standard selection on its menu, highlighting its originality and freshness of produce.

The emphasis at Singaraja, therefore, rightly starts with freshness. At the center of attraction is a seafood display. The customer is allowed to pick what he or she wants and have it cooked to his specification.

The resort's chef, Trevor Bilney, said: "First, a seafood display doesn't lie. What you see is what you get."

He said he will not tell you how to eat your seafood or how to cook it. "We can recommend styles of preparation but we leave it to the customer to choose," added chef Bilney, who has worked at some world-class restaurants in California and other places in the United States.

A glance at the chef's recommendations and you will see dishes such as the warm lobster salad -- lobster medallions on a bed of pak choy topped with Chinese pickles, mustard greens and mild toasted pepper dressing -- indeed, not your usual seafood fare.

The restaurant also offers Western menu items like chilled carrot soup with grilled shrimps, which gives the soup a distinctive taste.

If you want to taste a bit of the Mediterranean, Asian, European and the Middle East, you can visit Singaraja Seafood Restaurant.

Dining at Begawan Giri Estate's Biji Restaurant in Ubud is a stunning experience for food lovers who want to taste unparalleled and delicious meals.

Opened in l998, the Begawan Giri Estate's guests can choose to dine anywhere on this exclusive estate -- in their luxury suites, at their villa pavilion, or more formally at the estate restaurant called Biji, which means seed.

The restaurant is open at any time of the day and night.

Chef David King's specialties offer guests palate-enticing fare. King has an eclectic range of cuisine with authentic Indonesian accents. The dishes are consistently at their freshest and finest because most of the vegetables and herbs are harvested from the estate's vegetable gardens.

The Grand Hyatt Bali in Nusa Dua offers gastronomic delights at its restaurants.

The Italian restaurant, Salsa Verde, is situated at the beachfront with a Californian decor, and offers wood-oven baked pizzas. For lunch and dinner, the restaurant presents the pasta dishes, risotto, dolci and gelati. These are only a few of Salsa Verde's culinary delights.

Pasar Senggol is designed as a contemporary Balinese village. Guests will find an array of international food stalls along the village path. Among the choices are Indian chicken tandoori, Chinese noodles, Italian pasta, dessert stalls and the kaki lima (vendor carts) offering authentic Indonesian specialties.

An open-air theme restaurant, the Watercourt Cafe, offers Western and Asian breakfasts. In the evening, a brassiere style menu is prepared for you.

Inagiku is the hotel's Japanese restaurant chain under the same name. The restaurant is renowned for its tempura, teppanyaki and sushi bars.

Hotel Padma Bali also boasts a Japanese restaurant. Tenkai offers traditional Japanese food like shabu-shabu, sashimi and other delicious food for dinner from Tuesday to Sunday.