Bali Day 4 - Balique Restaurant + Belmond Hotel

Bali Day 4 - Balique Restaurant + Belmond Hotel

• March 11, 2019

It's getting closer to the wedding day and we have more friends and the happy couple themselves flying in to join us today. We've got plans to have lunch at the highly recommended Balique by a couple of friends who had been before, and then it's a pre-wedding party at the almost-newly-weds villa. 

Selection of breakfast goodies.

These stunning plumeria flowers fall off the trees and lay daintily all over the hotel grounds, it's one of my favourite flowers so what a pleasure it was to be surrounded by them.

After breakfast, we make our way over to Balique restaurant. It's a leisurely 20 minute walk but the pavement along the main stretch of road is narrow, rickety and uneven - pretty much a nightmare with a toddler in a pram. We passed lots of warungs (local food stalls) which I really, really wanted to stop for but was quite impossible with all the kids under 3 with us and 6 adults too. These are the sort of things best left until Isaac is much older I guess.

We stopped off at the supermarket and local souvenir shops enroute for a holiday haul. 

Blue Pepsi anyone? We passed on this one, didn't fancy blue wee thanks hehe.

Isaac is mesmerised by the fish in the tanks at the supermarket. This is a natural sight across lots of countries in Asia and Isaac is fascinated each time he comes across a tank full of fish. And best of all, he's hanging out with his favourite uncle, the uncle who always promises him an ice cream!

Uncle-Ice-Cream does what he does best and feeds Isaac with a treat.

Dragon fruit smoothie every day!

Balique is fab! Love the vintage-come-rustic decor.

Daddy and son photo time.

And then he chose to sit next to his fave uncle...

Still pretty intrigued by the Bali speciality of Rijsttafel or 'rice table', I'm keen to give Balique's version a try. It's basically a platter of small popular Balinese dishes such as curries, fried tempeh and sambals, and always comes with rice in the middle, hence it's name.

We sort of had a mini version on our first day at Kayumanis restaurant which I really enjoyed. Balique's version was nice but didn't wow. It was too watered down for a real authentic experience.

One of the guys ordered this rare steak with dauphinoise potatoes and it was just unbelievably out of this world!

The gravy, oh the gravy.... was phenomenal. Paired with the creamy potatoes and tender beefy steak, it was a mind blowing dish. Lucky it was ordered to share and it got demolished within minutes. I'd go back to Bali just for this.

After a lovely lunch at Balique, it's the usual head back to the hotel so the kids can nap. G stays with Isaac, so I nip across the road to a local massage parlour for a massage. I'm addicted to the cheap prices, and this parlour was offering it for £11 an hour. Given it didn't have the finesse of the one in the hotel which charged £13, I wish I'd just stuck to the hotel one. 

Once G and Isaac are up, we head over to the Belmond hotel to hang out in one of our friend's villas, until it's time to head to the pre-wedding party just the next villa down. The Belmond is just amazing with luscious greenery everywhere. What a feast for the eyes!

So many striking statues and architecture around the grounds.

Once inside the villa, the kids are having a blast playing by the private pool. Unicorn float courtesy of the groom-to-be, I kid you not that it's his property! 

A whole roast piggy was ordered for the pre-wedding party, what a treat and feast! Yum.

Isaac is the page boy for the big day tomorrow, so he gets to meet the flower girl and have a little practise at holding hands whilst walking around the room. It's the cutest thing ever! But kids being kids, who knows if they'll perfom on the big day tomorrow or not.

Thank you Bali for another wonderful day. You can find the rest of my Bali posts here.