Bali Day #8 – it’s Ruther’s 50th & New Year’s Eve
Where is this holiday disappearing to? Bali Day #8 – it’s Ruther’s 50th & New Year’s Eve began with a trip to Ubud town for lunch and a little shopping. I chose the lunch venue and holy cow so so glad I did, as this place is legendary. Spice by Chris Salans. It is a MUST MUST do if you are in Ubud. Again check Islifearecipe.net for more on the grub. Coming to a blog near you soon. But first Daddy had to slip in to his feminine side and colour Amy’s hair. She sort of looks like one of those unicorns dolls, just minus the horn. I think I did a great job of it and she did give Daddy compliments for his work.
I like a lot, and with jungle background too I think awesome. Way to go Daddy.
Front back and sides no less. Check it out – like a huge candy-floss head. Funny thing is she is actually facing me!!!
After a wee bit of shopping we dash immediately to secure a table for 13. I was pushing our luck here as I had already tried to book on Chope with no success, but at the gate they let us in. I am so so thankful for that, as I am certain the rest of our gastro tourists were too.
This is a uber cool GastroPub. He also has Moziac restaurant in Ubub, which as I understand is more fine dining and couply. Also in driving past; it is for events, and also looks like there might be cooking classes – mental note to self for next time we come here…
I am loving this place, like loving it. And the food they throw out is EXCEPTIONAL, especially when I look down and espy the size of the kitchen. Triple wow respect!!!
Every little detail is super, duper, uber cool. Loving it in a big big way. And then add in the food and this gaff is an HOLY COW moment!!!
Well hello there campers, all OK. I think a massive resounding yes was given as the answer. Happy campers indeed!!!
Ubud’s busy bit is two one-way streets – shops, restaurants and cool trendy hangouts. I forgot how good Ubud is. It is hip and happening.
It’s busy busy busy. Just don’t get annoyed with the continuous; “Boss taxi, taxi, hey boss taxi…”
Then a dash back home to allow Marky Mark and I to get to work and get cooking fro New Year’s Eve dinner for the gang. We ordered some prawns, pork belly, snapper, sambal (we got given three types), sweetcorn and fresh herbs – now what shall we do with this lot???
Let’s get in the thick of it Chef…
4 types of snapper – 3x different sambal stuffed, and one with lime/ginger/lemon grass/garlic. All wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in dried coconut husk BBQ.
I have never seen a fish filleted from the top down, only ever from the guts. Most bizarre thing ever. Hey Ho is what it is – but just calling out like – it’s weird!!!
Fish says; “You know I am in two minds, I am just beside myself!!!”
Mild sambal fish x2 up next. Looking good, looking good.
Next up is sambal heat #2. Again simply stuffed and rolled in banana leaf for BBQ’ing. This sambal was absolutely bloody knockout. Smoky flavour off the charts. Delicious.
“Who you looking at huh? What you never seen a fish wrapped in banana leaf with its head split open? Man get a life. Now leave to me my marinading!”
We are indeed getting down to business – carefully under the watchful eye of birthday boy.
Taking the mild sambal leftovers and adding more lemon grass, garlic, saffron and lime – and hey presto we have our prawn marinade.
Mark and I popped out for 10 minutes as things were cooking on the BBQ. We get back to be met by an excited Amy. Yes she took us to the scene of a crime. One of the feral jungle cats had broken in to the kitchen, pulled a whole fish from our tray, unwrapped it from the banana leaf and scarpered – the little shit. OK down to 6 fish now.
Others chill as Mark and I Chillax. It gets dark here quick and the food is nearly done now. Bring it on campers!!!
In comes the most bizarre low cloud, completely drawing a new straight line horizon and blotting out the mountains completely. Please hopefully not too so we don’t get to see the FIREWORKS. Luckily we were cool and it cleared in time – whoop whoop.
W boiled the pork belly in some aromatics and sambal, then used the same ‘water’ to boil off the sweetcorn. I know what I’ll do… I’ll use that liquid and remaining fresh spices and herbs to make a Tom Yam. We even added the chicken jelly originally destined for the pork pie to whack in some additional flavour. I added in some white pepper corns so it came out quasi Tom Yum cum Bak Kut Teh. Noice from nothing!
We got to finish off the Wellies too – remember. Beautiful marinated steak, black pudding and Serrano ham, all wrapped up in flaky pastry and ‘baked’ in the BBQ to get a lovely smoky aftertaste too. Bloody brilliant these are/were.
A quick call out to Amy and Ollie for being photographers this evening, and a special thanks to Freja for capturing the; “Adults having fun with fireworks” segment. Great work you three, Thank you.
Just beautiful girls, beautiful. You know you are… Deep inside. Ha Ha Ha. Love you two!
Happy New Year my darlings!
A cracker of Mrs Flash and the beautiful beautiful girls.
We seem to be getting ticks in boxes for the food. Either that or Amy is busting for the loo???
Brady Bunch awaiting some gunpowder action…
Awwwwwww – what a lovely couple they are. Bless. Big hugs my loves.
Here we go. Designated HSE Officer, Fire-Starter and Sprinter extraordinaire – it’s our mate Flash. Check his weapon out. When I bought these I asked the guy should we bury them in the soil, he said no just hold them – yeah right. So Flash decides to masking tape them to poles stuck in the ground – will this work for the BEAST – read on…
Fish is coming out perfectly cooked – nicely charred but also protected from the direct coals, or coconut husk in this instance. Looking good boys, looking good.
Food now coming out thick and fast, despite not being able to see a thing. It’s the jungle folks. We are literally cooking by moonlight and the light of the fire, even the torchlight didn’t work as it could not cut through the smoke. Anyways – we battled through and the food came good!
Here’s the pork belly. Boiled in a stock for an hour or so and then baked in the BBQ, oven-like. It was sat in top of some sambal, that we had laced with honey and lime juice. Sliced thin. Absolutely spanking! Not bad on a BBQ eh?
Final fish come out, 2 types of sambal stuffing. How good do they look. Yummo!
Coconut cream and butter sweetcorn, and those amazing prawns. I have it in good authority, from Amy, that the prawns were really fresh and flavourful. Gets my vote.
We stopped in the way home at the local market for Daddy to get supplies. Supplies as in stuff for New Year eve celebration. Supplies as in FIREWORKS baby. So I picked up $65 worth, or 650,000 Rupiah. A big bag of big buggers. This is gonna be fun, fun, fun. We had Flash (perfect name) in charge of the kids show, before it got serious with double and treble up time. Let’s have a little watch.
Then we get to the pinnacle of the night – to see in the New Year, Daddy went shopping. Oh yes. And Daddy found this mother.
Imagine three grown men cowering behind a BBQ lid, AKA shrapnel screen, in the jungle undergrowth. Meanwhile upstairs in the restaurant is Freja Rutherford, AKA, Kate Aidie running continual footage of the forthcoming carnage. So Ollie, Flash and I are standing next the the BIG ONE. Nervous giggles between us, and some sort of speech being uttered by Ollie for 2018 – to be honest a little poo and wee was exiting body Kennett so I didn’t hear any of it until the video replay. In front of us we had the lid of the BBQ as a blast shield, yeah that works, well of course it will after about 15 bottles of Bintang. What could possibly go wrong?
Maybe the masking tape ‘lashing’ we had done to a stick stuck in the ground, might come loose with the force of the BIG ONE. Maybe it would then start firing at us and the house. Maybe we would create out own footage akin to Bosnia and Kuwait. Maybe we would have shrapnel flying past our ears. Maybe we would end up blowing up a rather chunky and solid pond/plant pot with one wayward rocket. Nah, surely not. It surely could not happen right? Well it bloody did. Scary shit it was. Yes poo and wee did exit.
Thank God for the blast shield, my counterparts in HSE, Ollie and Flash, and for Kate Aidie for the footage because that was one hysterical moment in time that needed keeping forever. I have not laughed so much for an age – thank you all for that. I was finding bits of the pot blown about 10 feet away the next day. I kid you not – have a check out here.
No BS when that thing blew up 5 times on the ground there was shrapnel flying everywhere. One piece hit this concrete bowl/pond thing. You can see for yourself the force and power of it – that goodness for our blast shield AKA BBQ lid ha ha. Too funny.
THIS IS MUCH WATCH TV – CLICK HERE
That’s it – midnight has been and gone – it is 2019. HNY.
#1 son and Dad having a giggly night. “He is the fire-starter, twisted fire-starter..”
