Pork in Bali for Your Happy Belly

"Selamat datang di Bali" or in English means "Welcome to Bali" is a common sentence if we arrived in Bali. It appears in the airport's billboard to welcome the tourists so they can enjoy their vacation in Bali. Bali is such a beautiful place, with its magnificent blue sea and warm tropical wind which are very eye-pleasing. The place that able to make your family smile. Ther are many fascinating things you can do with your family, such as play surf at the beach, culinary time, interesting Balinese culture study, hiking, and another fascinating's. Not just bring a joy to family, Bali in another side also make sure that Bali is comforting for you and your couple. Imagine for the fine dining with incredible sea view accompanied with romantic music. Your love's power becomes significant higher each other with its warm ambience. Ouch...., so sweet... aww... (just kidding). 

Anyway, one thing that I want to clarify to you guys, you guys need to know that Bali is not a single country. As I know, lots of people think that Bali is an independent country. Bali is an island that located in Lesser Sunda Islands, islands that located in the east of Java Island, Indonesia. So yes, Bali is part of Indonesia country, my beloved homeland (I am Indonesian by the way). 

Bali is a unique island, because most of the local citizens' religion are Hinduism, which is different from majority religion of western part of Indonesia such as Java, Sumatera, or Kalimantan. Most of western Indonesian people are devoted Muslim, which formed 87% of the entire population. The culture is also different, even there are small similarities. These makes Bali has their own identity, own culture, and own landscape that create the different color of diversity in Indonesia. That's why Bali is often to represent Indonesia to the worldwide. 

Bali has strong culinary identity. That's why I have visited Bali for 3 times, and I always look forward to their authentic food, especially pork. We can find pork easily in Bali more than another big city in Western Indonesia. Not just serving the best pork dishes, you can find lots of interesting food that only can be found in Bali, such as pie susu (Balinese condensed milk pie), ayam betutu (Balinese chicken), babi guling (Balinese roasted pork), nasi campur (Balinese mixed rice) and many more. I have tried them all, and it tastes so yummy and umami. Here are the little tips to eat in Bali, pie susu is the wise choice if you are looking for the sweet stuff. And the 'main actor' or the 'last boss' of Balinese culinary is the pork dishes, which is the highlight for the people who allowed to eat and seek when people come to Bali.

One of the famous pork dishes in Bali is called babi guling. In Indonesia, babi means 'pork', meanwhile guling refers to the pork's cooking process (being rolled). Based on the previous translation, babi guling is a roll grilled pork that marinated with Balinese ingredients. Thing that made this dish authentic is the pig and the spices. Even most babi guling there using normal farm pig, some of them still use the Balinese pig. Balinese pig's size is smaller than usual pig. Besides that, the traditional pig's colour is black, not pink as the farm had. Usually, babi guling is served with a rice, urap vegetable (mixed vegetables that contain processed coconut), grilled pork, skin's crackers, spices soup with steamed pork, and some restaurants offer urutan (Balinese traditional sausage).

Babi guling is very famous in Bali, so we can find babi guling restaurant easily. The price is also affordable here, start from Rp15.000 until Rp25.000. As a Jakarta citizen, if we want to eat babi guling in Jakarta, we have to spend more than Rp50.000. I had eaten babi guling in Jakarta, the price of 1 package that I ordered is Rp55.000, which means babi guling in Jakarta is more expensive and less authentic. As a food enthusiast, I able to feel the taste differences between the authentic one and the 'fusion' one. I hope I can find a place that can sell babi guling properly, authentically, and cheap in Jakarta. If you guys know about it, let me know the place by the comment below.

In Bali, I visited several famous places to enjoy babi guling. I had eaten babi guling in a place called Warung Babi Guling Bu Oka, but it was my first time to go there. I just remember at that time I was grade 3 in primary school. In 2023, I and my family went to Ubud Bird Park to see the variance kinds of bird. We decided to had lunch because the time told us to eat first. Then we go ahead to a restaurant that sold babi guling, there was Warung Babi Guling Sari Dewi in Ubud. 

Babi Guling that I ate in Warung Babi Guling Sari Dewi in Ubud

As I remembered, the restaurant was not big, but it was not that small too. Then, we ordered babi guling with rice and pork satay. The Babi guling was great, but it became perfect when I combined the seasoning with the grilled pork. Imagine the juicy and fatty of the pork combine with umami-spicy and quite strong spices seasoning. The vegetables urap was great too, fresh and little bit sweet from the coconuts powder. The soup was absolutely amazing! The spices, the thickness of the soup is the champion for me. Unfortunately, the pork inside the soup was dominated by its bone :( . Satay was nice, too. It tasted sweet and little bit umami and fatty from the pork. I recommend to you guys to try by yourself. I can make sure there is no regret after you try it. 

We ate babi guling almost every day during in Bali, and fortunately there were no Bali Belly for us. For us, it just made our belly happy. Let me know your 'Bali belly' story below in the comment. Anyway, for those who don't know, Bali belly is a symtom of gastro with nausea, headache, diarrhea, and stomach cramp. It could be happened due to the food or water contamination in Bali. 

And this is the end of the story of babi guling in Indonesia's treasure, Bali. For the readers that intend to go to Bali, pray all the best from your trip, and gain the best experiences during the vacation. And hope this article helps you to give more insight about Balinese culinary, especially for the special babi guling.