THURSDAY 27th FEBRUARY 2025

A post-wedding holiday is called a Honeymoon.

A pre-baby holiday is now commonly referred to as a ‘Baby-moon’.

Apparently, the term ‘Mini-moon’ is also a thing, referring to a romantic bite-size trip, short, sweet and just long enough to get over the exhaustion of a wedding day, saving the big adventure for later.

Then there is the ‘Mega-moon’ (or ‘Maxi-moon’ depending on who you talk to) which are typically taken sometimes months after the wedding excitement is done and dusted, usually involving an epic adventure that is well planned and potentially financed by cash-giving wedding guests.

A ‘Giving-moon’ is a variety that intrigues me, the couple spending time overseas volunteering at their charity of choice, or an ‘Adventure-moon’ is something I might have chosen (if I had happened to be born a millennial😜) which would be made up of wild experiences in off-the-beaten track destinations. Then there’s the “Buddy-moon” when going on a trip with a friend is a better option then getting married or my very favourite, a ‘Foodie-moon’… no need to guess what that includes 😋😋😋

But what I want to know, is what it’s called when the parents of the bride have a holiday post engagement party?

‘Opportunistic’ maybe? 😜

Since we had already driven to Sydney for the engagement party last week, we decided it was silly of us to not take the opportunity for a quick holiday. We are completely over-doing the holiday thing at the moment, but I am still in that post-finishing-work stage where the thrill of being able to do what we like when we like is still extremely exciting.

When I worked as a chef it was nothing for me to be on my feet in a kitchen 12 or more hours a day. A ‘normal’ day might have seen me working across two meal shifts or even sometimes all three, with short breaks between breakfast and lunch and then lunch and dinner. It was commonplace for my legs to ache from the hard floors of a commercial kitchen, but at that stage I was young, energetic and passionate, and very willing to spend a good amount of cash on a decent pair of kitchen clogs!

From time-to-time I still like to do a bit of catering, if for no better reason than to remind myself I still have the capability. Catering for Victoria and Justin’s engagement party last weekend was more motivated by the desire to keep costs down and make sure the food was the high quality expected from a gathering I was hosting. Making people happy through food is my thing, after all!

But come Sunday afternoon, post party and wedding dress shopping, I was literally exhausted. Every bone and muscle in my body was aching and that faint recollection of myself as an energetic and capable 20-something-year-old chef (and mother of two toddlers) was very, very dim. Don’t worry, I will not be catering for the wedding!

After hanging out with Dad and Pamela in beautiful Manly on Monday morning, Dave and I headed to the airport. I wasn’t sure about writing about this trip on the blog (given the holiday was mostly about relaxing and my previous comments about not liking a show-off) but I did think it might be nice to catalogue through the blog some of the excellent food experiences we have had this week. I could have also written about lying around our villa’s pool; or about sipping cocktails; or about falling asleep while reading under the air-conditioning and therefore taking a whole week to finish a book… but that would be pretty boring to read (but was incredibly restful for us!)

So, here’s my top five eating experiences for the week. My Best Bali Bites:

ONE: SATAY. I’ve always quite liked a Satay (often spelt Sate in Indonesia), but on this trip it has become a bit of an obsession, not least because Dave has decided he loves them too. When Dave chooses Chicken Satay and boiled rice over banana splits or banana fritters, you know you’re onto something 😉 We ate Satay at least half a dozen times on this holiday, but our very favourite version was at Warung Nia, a locally run budget-friendly restaurant in the middle of Seminyak, with a great reputation for authentic Balinese cuisine. At Warung Nia they serve the satay sticks to the table on a mini grill with hot coals underneath, which made it both appealing to look at and super tasty, the smokiness complimenting the warmth of the spices and ensuring the marinated pieces of chicken and/or pork remained golden and tender. It was so delicious that we ate satays there three times in total, twice in the restaurant at dinner time, and once for a late lunch, delivered by Gojek (Uber equivalent) when we were hungry but couldn’t be bothered going out. At less than $10 for eight satay sticks (including delivery) with a decent sized serve of their particularly tasty peanut sauce, why not!

TWO: NASI GORENG. How could you visit Indonesia and not eat what is often referred to as their national dish? Eaten at breakfast, lunch or dinner time, or even as a snack, you can’t walk more than a few metres in Bali without seeing their version of fried rice being eaten by locals and tourists alike. Twice I enjoyed Nasi Goreng for breakfast at the villa, served in the traditional way with a fried egg on top and some extra chilli sauce, to go with the already generous sweet-soy sauce that is used to caramelise and flavour the rice as it fries.

THREE: Everything at Honey and Smoke.

I like Bali for a lot of reasons, not the least being able to eat out at fabulous high-end restaurants for a reasonable price. Dinner at Honey and Smoke for example was about A$100 for the two of us (no alcohol). Similar restaurants in Sydney would be well over $200, if not more.

I tried to choose my favourite dish at this amazing restaurant, but simply couldn’t, it was all so good. The pictures below give you an insight into what we ate over the two nights we had dinner there. I wasn’t feeling fabulous the first time we went (Sunday) so decided to go back again on the Tuesday!

Honey and Smoke is one of many celebrity chef owned high-end Bali restaurants, in this case owned by Will Meyrick. The gorgeously decorated restaurant sits on the busy ‘Monkey-forest’ street in the heart of Ubud, among many other fabulous restaurants. Its website describes it as ‘speakeasy meets Grillery’ which I think nicely summarises the dark and moody space. We sat upstairs, initially for the air-conditioning, but with a fun retro fit-out conjuring the heady days of rail travel, we were also glad to sit upstairs for the fabulous ambience.

I’m not sure why I haven’t come across Will Meyrick before. Having now read a bit more about him I’m pretty impressed by his approach to food, the travel and research he has so extensively immersed himself in, and the stories he tells about people through food. This link heads to an article about Will Meyrick that tells you more about his heritage, passions and purpose. A true global nomad, Will was born in Portugal and then raised in Scotland, Italy and Peru. He now owns six restaurants in Indonesia, having previously worked throughout Asia, and having spent six years in a couple of big-name Sydney restaurants, including Longrain. He has a significant media presence, runs cooking schools and foodie tours and still manages to spend time in the kitchens of his restaurants teaching, and learning from, his team.

You would think I would rate a restaurant based mostly on the food, but to be honest, ambience and service play equally big parts for me. Both Dave and I loved the ‘vintage-train’ vibe complete with old suitcases on brass luggage racks, and the service was nothing short of exceptional. I can confidently say that Bali has the most service-friendly people in the world, but this place took it to another whole level. The server’s smiles made us never want to leave and they quickly attended to our every need (and then some), were courteous and friendly, yet professional and highly skilled.

But yes, the food was also sensational. As I said I can’t pick a favourite (of the dozen small ‘share’ dishes we tried over the two visits), but can I say the scallops were to die for. I may dream of them for months to come with the chilli butter, dried mint yoghurt and sumac complimenting the wood-fired scallops perfectly. But the whipped mortadella served on grilled brioche with ricotta, caramelized onions, dried orange zest and crumble pistachio will be hard to forget too; and the carrots… OMG, I’d better stop there!

FOUR: ICED LATTE.

Iced-coffee is currently my daytime eating out drink of choice. I only have one a day, and then only if we are on holidays or eating out. I had a few crackers in Bali, but also had a couple of shockers too. At about A$3 they are certainly good value.

FIVE: A SKEWER OF PAW-PAW.

Okay, it wasn’t the most fabulous food experience ever, especially since both the tea and the fruit were served luke warm. But OMG the Balinese massage before it and the creme bath afterwards (Head and Hair treatment) …

And here is a random dump of other Bali food photos, for posterity 🙂

And other random Bali pics:

And for Ros… a few monkey videos. I’m not a fan. Cheeky little buggers 😅

The main purpose of going to Bali (apart from Engagement party recovery), was for Dave to finish the book he is writing. It’s close… but not quite there. All the relaxation kept distracting him 😉