Anyone who knows me well will be aware of my deep seated belief in the healing powers of swine. Many a bleary eyed morning has found me holed up in the kitchen, tethered to a grease speckled stove and soothing a hangover with plate after plate of pork. A recent bender found me braving 40C+ tempratures to ride across town in search of bacon, with a desire that could only be saited with a caterers pack of rindless short cut. Yep, I’m a sweet meat senorita, a pork on yr fork kinda gal, and on a recent trip to Bali, I discovered a whole new dimension of devotion on the island of the gods.Now Indonesia and swine may not be instantly synonomous; it being one of the largest muslim countries in the world. However, the island of Bali is unique in a number of ways, one of them being the dominance of an endemic version of Hinduism. This gives rise to a proliferation of both delicate offererings of flowers to the gods, and delicious offerings of pork to the tourists. Daging Babi (Pork meat) is widely consumed, with one of the signature dishes of the island being the delectable Babi Guling, or suckling pig.
My most recent Balinese excursion was courtesy of the sensational Ubud Writers Festival , a four day bonananza of global literature, in which I was lucky enough to participate in. On arrival I was whisked through the sprawls of Denpasar and Sanur into the lush hills of Ubud. Within three hours of landing in the country I was seated at Ibu Okas tucking into a plate of her infamous Babi Guling.
Daging Spesial at Ibu Okas
Ibu Okas is a bit of an insitution in Ubud. Situated across from the Palace, this bustling swine house does a relentless trade in the Babi from lunchtime onwards. Swarms of tourists lounge eating the Babi Spesial coupled with Bintangs of varying temperature, while taxi drivers jostle for take away swine wrapped in the trademark balinese brown paper triangles. Every now and then two runners hustle their way down the street with a whole cooked pig slung on a stick between them, and slap the carcass down on a table in the outdoor kitchen. 40,000 rps will get you a few chunks a sweet white flesh, a couple of strips of crackling, some strangly delicious pink “twice fried” pork, vegies, blood sausage and (if you’re really lucky) some indescript boney yellow things, which I have never really been able to identify.
In 7 days I ate there 6 times. Once I even managed to convice several other people to join me and so large was our pork party that we had to be escorted to a second Ibu Okas location up the road. Here we called for plate after plate of pork flesh and pork skin, accompanied by token amounts of rice and vegetables. We gorged ourselves amidst cast metal scupltures of lacatating sows and their offspring, until we quite literally ate them out of skin.
It is one of my most satisfying memories of the whole trip.
The other swine place to note in Ubud ranks higher in international noteriety, and is accordingly far more expensive, and not nearly as good. Naughty Noris hosts celebrity crackling chompers and it’s killer martinis have been raved about in many a hipster magazine. It’s an outdoor grill that specialise in racks of pork rib, marinated in big pots and cooked over an open flame. Despite the exhorbitant price by local standards (nearly 200,000 rp including taxes), theres nothing quite like watching a group of slender ladies bbq giant slab s of meat on a balmy afternoon. The ribs are exceptionally tender and even more messy; this is not a meal to pick up someone over unless you both have a penchant for licking marinade of eachothers elbows. They are served in a no nonsense fashion, deviod of any trimmings and with a single steak knife for cutlery. For the tight arses, or those who would like to make a nod towards a balanced diet, their pork loin sandwich (60,000rp) is also not bad, but definately steer clear of the burgers. They serve imported beers, if you’re really craving one.
Pork Ribs from the Infamous Naugthy Nuris in Ubus
Arriving back to my desert homeland, my ocean starved and gastronomically deprived peers drilled me for tales of exotic seafood dishes. It was then that I did the tally; thirteen meals of pork in seven days……piggy piggy pig.
TuckaFukka 