Bali… You know I love you! – My favourite restaurants in Bali, accommodation and shopping!

My love affair started with Bali over 15 years ago, I think we have stayed here about 10 times since, it’s the holiday that everyone in our family loves.

We love the people, the food, the sunset on the beach, did I mention shopping and massages, oh, and the surf! It’s all about the surf for the big guy!

Here’s a list of some of my favourite restaurants in Bali, accommodation and the best place for a massage.

I love this place because it caters to all our needs, everyone is happy and no one misses out! Thought I’d indulge myself in a daydream that we are still there!

Here is the little guy at the airport… so excited to be going on a plane, (he’s been on them before, but he understands so much more now he’s 4), we had been counting down for the whole of August on Tomfo to get on the plane, we had many wines and catch ups about this trip, the anticipation is always worth it for a good month before I reckon too!

We LOVE VILLA COCO, it’s our second time here, we came with another family and had interconnecting rooms, our own pools, plus the main pool and bar. With little kids this place is magic, ’cause when they’re all in bed, we can sit by the pool and enjoy the evening with a few bintangs and duty free (no baby sitters required, gold!) Claire and the guys here are amazing, breakfast is served every morning and the first thing we do is get our nails done (with the flower pattern) and the kids get there hair braided, then I know we are in Bali. We have massages in our rooms, too good. Here are a few pics, we stay in A7 and A8 villas.

Villa Coco is on Double Six, has shopping just outside the door and is safe for the little ones, we book directly through Claire and we usually get a discount with massages and breakfast included. I think this is my other home, so does the little guy!

HEAD TO THE BEACH FOR SUNSET!

This is one of my other favourite things to do in Bali, head to the beach for sunset! Magic! You know you are in Bali when you are sitting on a deck chair, the kids are playing on the sand, and you’ve got a bintang in your hand. We go to the same guy every year, set our price for the chairs and beers and enjoy the sunset. Heaven! Then we head back and usually grab some dinner at one of the restaurants along the beach Tekor (great indonesian food), pizzas are the best at Cafe Marzano, we grabbed these for the kids a few nights, the pasta was “to die for” here too.

THREE OF MY FAVOURITE RESTAURANTS IN BALI

We have great Balinese friends and usually get the girls, Julie and Nyomen to come to to villa while we head out for dinner, the kids love them and they also drive the boys to the surf spots and other day trips, they’re our other Bali family. This year, their kids came and put on a traditional Balinese show for us at the villa’s too!

My favourite food is nasi goreng, I have it for breakfast lunch and dinner, but I make an exception when we head to these restaurants.

KORI RESTAURANT

This restaurant is one of our favourites when we go to Bali, (a girlfriend and I found this place years back) and it makes me salivate at the thought of writing about it now.If you do nothing but go to KORI you will not be disappointed. It’s off Poppies Lane II, walk through a beautiful door and you’ll find a magic oasis, the caprioskas are scrumptious, I always have the satay sticks (above) and for main – the hot stone – you can’t go past it! Choose veal medallions or fillet steak, the hot stones come out and you cook as required and dip the meat into the sauces, this is one dish I can’t get enough of.

If you fancy a chilli mud crab, I highly recommend, the sticky date and cheesecake for desserts are glorious.
This is where we also started out love affair with the margarita. I am smitten with this place, the pics don’t do it justice, we always request the cushion seats, we went there twice on this last visit. It’s a must do, book ahead to reserve the cushions, it’s all about the ambience!

SEA CIRCUS

SEA CIRCUS is another fave… oh so yum and fresh, and the best MARGARITA I have had in Bali, PASSION FRUIT AND GUAVA MARGARITA, this was our second visit and was still as good, (pictured above) Crispy calamari, with ginger soy dipping sauce Rp55,000, Snapper Ceviche with flour tortilla chips Rp60,000, OMG loved this one! We shared a few of these dishes (all fab), I had the Honey Roasted pumpkin Rissotto, Mwah! I would book next time, as this place was popular then last time we were here!

FRENCH IN BALI – PEARL RESTAURANT

Oh bonjour Jeremy….

PEARL awesome French food with a chef to die for, (Jeremy) we ask him to come out and explain the menu every time, just to see him, we love the accent! His food is nothing short of spectacular! The setting is beautiful, white flowing drapes and beautiful lights, you must try the tasting dessert, out of this world!
Oh there’s more…. I could go on forever about the food in Bali… perhaps another post?

SHOPPING IN BALI

I love a bit of a shop in Bali…As a rule, I go by most things should be 20 – 30,000 Rp that’s 2 or 3 bucks, shirts, shorts, sarongs, sunnies 3 for 50-60,000 etc. Here are some of the things we purchased on this trip, a bit more expensive that, but still great prices.

1. Beach Bag 80,000 rp, we grabbed a heap of these for presents, it’s my new beach bag, in a small shop on Double six, just across the road from Sol & Luna (another cool clothes shop). 2 + 5. Fluro sandals, found these at Lost in Paradise Rp350,000 (there are a few of these shops, one near Bintang Supermarket, the other in Seminyak, fab shop – with great clothes for men and women too, I know these are going to be my favourite shoes this summer, love them! 4. New beanbags from Donny’s, we all grabbed some of these, I got 2 singles, a double and 3 ottomans, RP910,000 for the lot, (I’ll post our revamped deck with these on my next post). 3. Leather Jacket, from the gorgeous guys at Merry’s Collection, this is suede, love it cost $100, took 5 days to make so head there first and grab a cold one at the Corner Bar after just a cross the road. When we were here our exchange rate was RP10,000 to $1AUS

THE BEST MASSAGE IN BALI

COOL This is my absolute favourite in Bali cost RP 150,000 for 1 hour massage, to die for! I can still hear the sound of the white stones crunching, as we enter the massage room, the foot wash at the begining is awesome. We went here about four times this trip, can they open up a shop like that here? Even the guys love this place, that’s saying something, they don’t normally do massages! You need to book in advance and after be sure to drop in to Grocer and Grind for a Granita and a yumo burger.

OTHER PLACES WE HAVE STAYED ARE:

A cheaper option is PURI DAMAIWe have stayed here beofre and would again, but they don’t take kids, it is in a good area and just down a little gang to get to Legian beach, we had brekky at Kumala Pantai when we stayed here, all you can eat for Rp50,000, also check out Tommy’s Cafe, they have fab muffins and coffee’s and the staff are awesome. This is a cheaper option, we could stay here for longer when the kids are over 12. Imagine that!

BALI MANDIRA Would stay here again, on the beach, great breakky and you can see the waves while you eat. This place is position, position, close to Garlic Lane, beach out front, etc. We stayed here without kids and loved it, it’s just a hop skip and a jump to the restaurants along the beach too. It’s just had a renno, so we might give this a go with the kids next time, we don’t mind a 2 stay holiday, it breaks up the fun and adds excitement to the last week.

OCEAN OUTRIGGER We haven’t stayed here, but had a massage, was beautiful, a bit expensive, but very high calibre. I love the position on the beach and close to restaurants and that glorious sunset, the rooms look small, but, position is everything, you can watch the fireworks on the beach every night here.

KARTIKA PLAZAWe have also stayed at Kartika Plaza, this place has great teppanyakki, is a bit away from the shopping of Legian, but right on the beach, and has a swim up pool bar. I have actually stayed here 4 times and the pool bar was the clincher, last time we booked out a private villa and went with the 2 babies and 2 couples,was expensive, but had a great wave out the front for the big guys, fab food and we had already done our shopping, so was a nice treat at the end of the holiday. It’s next door to Centro where you can get Converse, Sunnies etc, but on the other side of Kuta in Tuban, it’s close to Waterboom Park (another great place for the kids for the day.)

There are a few other places we’ve stayed in Seminyak and Legian too, I might post more later, oh… there’s Balian Beach, Ulus, Canguu etc, yep will have to post some more day dreams on those places….

Such wonderful memories of our favourite place Bali, I’ve enjoyed dreaming of being back there today and remembering such a fab holiday with glorious friends and family.

I’d love to hear where you stay, there are a million options and it all depends on what you want, budget and who your going with for the best place to stay.

Drop me a line on my facebook page or email me sarahpreston{@}tomfo.com

Better get saving so we can book that next holiday, the little guy keeps saying, “Mum can we go back to our other house in Bali?”

One day it will all come around again and we’ll be back on that glorious beach watching the sunset…

Live with Love,

P.S If you need to keep your family organised for 2015 check out my 2015 family organiser calendar in my shop it’s got 6 columns so you can keep track of everyone in the family and comes with 368 stickers.