Balinese Food and Cooking | Jala Jala's Seafood Basket

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Aug/Sept, 1998
No. 036/VI/98

Young Guns
Bali's Generation X speak out

Bali-Sumbawa Surfari
Gone Surfin",
by boat

Regular

Gallery
Imagining the Soul

Health and Beauty
Which Doctor?

Food
Something Fishy

Fiction
Womb by Cok Sawitri

Jungle Drums

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Bali Echo web site

JALA JALA

You can see where the Aussies have been when you look at the drinks menu. Subtly named cocktails such as Slippery Nipple, Freddy Fud Pucker and Pickled Brains indicated that the tone had changed completely. This place is a good down-home nosherie - cheap, tasty and popular. As a well-known Legian chef was known to say, it’s not a matter of how good your food is, but how many customers you can attract.

It was Saturday night in Sanur. While we perused the menu, a loud lad at the bar was telling a bemused staff member about the night before. “I got home at four in the morning and muntah terus (technicolour yawned incessantly, ed.),” he was yelling. My partner churlishly commented that the bloke obviously had his Bahasa Indonesia under more control than his drinking habits.

I settled for fried squid with tartare sauce while my partner chose garlic prawns. His prawns were tasty, well-cooked and lying on a bed of slivered cabbage. My squid was crisp and tender. The sauce could have done with a little lemon as it was a bit too bland. The name tartare sauce has come to dignify all manner of horrors, despite it being as much effort to make a bad sauce as a good one. Authentic tartare sauce has finely chopped dill pickles in it to give sharpness with which to offset the mayonnaise background. Fresh dill or lemon can give the same effect.

My seafood basket, which came later, was filing, featuring crabs, squid prawns and fish, and at just under Rp40,000 very good value. The accompanying vegetables were steamed to perfection and delicious. Two sauces, a garlic “butter” and a piquant sambal accompanied the dish. My pet peeve is the widespread use of Blue Band for sauces. I once read in a scientific journal that the Dutch banned this margarine years ago as it was associated with birth defects. I can imagine why. My partner’s fish ( a red snapper) barely filled the basket in which it was served and was savoury if not a bit dry.

I accompanied my meal with a ‘Chateaux Cardboard’ white and my partner with a beer. With no-one representing the restaurant to eat with, we were unable to get a sense of the history of the restaurant or whether or not they were being hit by the current troubles in exchange rates. We had some indication that this might be the case when my partner ordered a whisky and was told that the range was limited to arak, Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort. The fish had sated his appetite, but I persevered in the face of duty and ordered a pudding. The Crepe de Bali, topped with freshly grated coconut and palm sugar, was tasty but the texture provided a challenge to the jaws.

This is good tourist fare at a damn sight less cost than most people would pay at home. Seafood is expensive in most Western nations right now. The staff, especially Putri who was assigned to our table, were all friendly and helpful, she and her friends bringing food and drinks quickly and efficiently. The bill, at just over Rp200,000 (around US$17) was cheap in any language. Go there with your football mates or your real estate agent, but make sure they like techno pop. Jalan Danau Tamblingan 90. Tel. 289 333.

Above:
1. Jala Jala's seafood Basket

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