Rain Stops Play

With no handy bread for toasting, or cornflakes to toss into a bowl, making breakfast tends to become an involved affair, if I let it. Today I let it and threw the contents of the fridge at the plate, transforming it into something roughly resembling nasi pecel.

Nasi pecel for breakfast

The pecel was blanched slice long beans and bean sprouts in a spicy peanut sauce, which was accompanied by fried tempeh with soy sauce, bihun rice noodles, and rempeyek peanut crackers.

The rainy season showed us today that it is hitting its stride. Ironically, we had just come to the conclusion that we might quite like to see Bali's beaches after all. Much rumbling of thunder and a torrential downpour put paid to that idea.

It was probably just as well, as I was feeling slightly off colour today, with a crampy stomach that I put down to nothing more untoward than yesterday's rich food.

Nevertheless, I felt unwell and moped around until K suggested that I needed the chicken soup remedy so beloved of Jewish mothers. Fortunately, with the discovery of nearby Looi Bazaar vegetarian café, this could be achieved.

Vegetarian soto ayam

Soto ayam is Indonesia's answer to chicken soup. Together with bakso, it is one of the most popular street vendor foods and can be found all over Bali. The vegetarian version was an oily, peppery stock made yellow through the use of turmeric, covering fried pieces of 'chicken', slices of daikon radish, and fried shallots. Restorative.