New Moon / Chinese New Year

Bubur injun is apparently a big thing in Bali. Essentially a rice pudding made from glutinous black rice, coconut milk and palm sugar, I have been reliably informed that "no menu is complete without it". I must have been walking with my eyes closed, as I have so far not seen it. So, having picked up a bag of black rice the other day at the supermarket, I decided to give the recipe a go myself.

In a jar owing to lack of bowl. Honest

The result was surprisingly chocolatey for a recipe containing none of it and retained the chewiness of the rice. I prefer my rice pudding with a creamier texture than this dish had, but I shan't know whether that's 'to style' until I try the real McCoy. The one mistake I did make, however, was to eat too much, forgetting how filling rice pudding can be.

Today is Chinese New Year - the year of the goat - but with only a 3% representation on Bali, there have been few obvious celebrations. Apparently a lion dance (known as barongsai) took place at the local supermarket, and the Maitreya Buddhist temple, although an imposing structure and decorated in lanterns, has not seemed very populated.

We paid a visit to the temple and spoke briefly to a Chinese Buddhist monk. He had been to England once and declared that it was "very difficult to get vegetarian food". I assured him that things had changed since his visit and pointed out that it is also quite difficult in Bali, but that there is a purely vegetarian restaurant just along the road on Jalan Gunung Soputan.

As it had been mentioned, we went along to Loi Bazaar vegetarian restaurant to sample Indonesian classics that we couldn't otherwise try.

Bakso

Bakso is everywhere - on street carts and in warungs. Traditionally it's a soup with noodles and meatballs fashioned from puréed beef, which gives them a homogenous texture, like frankfurters or fish surimi. Variations exist with pork or chicken. The brown beefy broth in my vegetarian version was spicy with pepper, the noodles the instant 'Maggi' kind, and the meatballs fashioned presumably from soya.

Lalapan

K chose lalapan, which is a rather worthily healthy dish along the lines of gado gado salad. In this case, the vegetables (long beans, cucumber, cabbage, lemon basil) were raw (not blanched) and joined vegetarian fried chicken (ayam goreng) to be dipped in a sambal terasi.

It is a seriously dangerous temptation having a cart parked round the corner every night offering gooey slabs of buttery, chocolatey goodness.

Just like the moon

This evening, we picked up a box of terang bulan, with the (frankly gossamer) excuse that the name translates as 'bright moon', and so its appearance would replace the lack of light shining from the actual Moon, which is in its 'new' phase today.