Tahu Tek

It is very tempting to shuffle along to Warung Soputan of a morning and have the roti man dish up a comforting plate of fried dough and dal. So, this morning, we let ourselves be tempted.

Roti canai and (back) prata

On our last visit, we branched out to try roti jala - a lace like crêpe - but today we went with the classic roti canai and a roti prata. The former is the thin tortilla version folded into quarters, while the latter is a spiral of flaky pastry that results from repeatedly folding and brushing the dough with ghee. This is also known as paratha.

After such an indulgence at breakfast time, we snacked only on fruit for lunch: salak, rambutan, and bananas. Salak are the snake-skinned fruits that have sweet and slightly acidic crunchy flesh. Rambutan are spiny little red golf balls whose insides have the same translucent flesh as lychee, but are, for my money, far tastier. In a clip of Eat, Pray, Love (the film) I have heard, Javier Bardem's character describes them "as though an orange has made love to a plum". What a way with words.

Some rain rolled in for the afternoon, which made us appreciate our good luck during yesterday's kecak performance, which saw perfect conditions.

Once the rain had cleared, we browsed the local shops, including a tailor's, which makes traditional Balinese garments for women. K is considering having a top made for her.

Suits you, madam

Since we were out, we decided to pick up a lazy dinner from a local vendor. When out the other day, we had noticed a street vendor selling tahu tipat - tofu and a cake of steamed rice, all sliced and topped with beansprouts and a peanut sauce. It looked delicious and, unusually, was a naturally vegetarian street dish. Tipat is Balinese for ketupat, a similar cake of steamed rice to lontong but wrapped in palm leaf rather than banana.

We found a version of tahu tipat sold on our street at a tiny warung run by a husband and wife team over a pair of hot woks. Here it went by the name of tahu tek, apparently because of the sound the scissors make (tek tek) when snipping the tofu (tahu) into bite-sized morsels. The tofu was first fried, then refried into an omelette by the wife. Meanwhile, the husband conjured fresh and spicy sambal kacang from a pestle and mortar, and the whole was assembled into a package for us to take away.

Tahu tek

The cheapest meals are often the best and, at 8000 rupiah (approx. 40p) per serving, this knocked many meals ten times the price into a cocked hat. Thankfully, as a local place, the sambal was prepared pedas (spicy), as we like it.

Aneka kue

As if to round out the evening perfectly, our ever-generous host appeared conveying to us a plate of deliciou kue (sweets and cakes), known as kuih in Malaysia. Among others, there was kue lapis Surabaya (a layer cake) and kue ku (a red Chinese tapioca cake).