Bakso in Bali

bakso beef

Bakso is a dish of noodles, meatballs and other assorted stuff served in a soup. It’s usually found on the streets – this particular variant comes with a *huge* fist sized beef ball. It’s homemade and the meat is slightly pink and tender on the inside. IDR 7,000 which is about RM 2.40 – it’s worth it for the gigantic homemade beef ball alone. πŸ™‚

bakso

However, the best bakso that we had was outside the Legian beach – it’s one of those portable stalls that allows the vendor to carry his wares behind his motorcycle and literally set up shop there. Nothing beats a hot bowl of this on a rainy evening by the beach.

bakso bali

We just had a very chill afternoon of swimming and lounging on the beach before it suddenly started raining. I really wanted to try the bakso and the guy who owns the stall was quite pleased to have our business and took several photos of us with his stall. He insisted. smirk

bakso stall

The setup is pretty similar but the stall had run out of noodles and egg so it’s just plain bakso (meatballs).

bakso meatball

The meatballs are held in a side area which is constantly heated but surprisingly retains the tender and juiciness of the meatballs.

bakso spicy

You can choose whether you want it spicy or regular (highly recommend the spicy) and it comes to you in a piping hot steaming bowl of goodness.

bakso locals

We sat down on a little nook right on the sidewalk just like the locals – it was that and the cold, wet and drizzling weather offset with a nice bowl of heartwarming spicy bakso that made this the best one we had in Bali. IDR 5,000 (RM 1.70).

bakso motorbike

Fresh raised a very good question though – where does the guy wash the bowls? πŸ™‚

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30 thoughts on “Bakso in Bali”

    • Haha! Actually that pose was the vendor’s idea. πŸ™‚

      I don’t know why but he was damn keen to take a photo of us holding the umbrella and scooping bakso.

      He took one of us that turned out really blurry though, my friend took the other one (the one in the post). πŸ˜€

      Reply
    • Yeah, figured that was the easiest way to go about it when it was raining…

      …but if it’s not, I reckon he did it by the beach. πŸ™‚

      Reply
    • Denpasar has a good babi guling place too. Not as commercialized as the usual Ibu Oka ones, and locals actually eat there instead of tourists. πŸ™‚

      Reply
  1. Haven’t had any good ones around here… Ya, cleanliness does not seem to be a priority there – I would be very careful about eating at hawker places and coffee shops…

    Reply
    • Yeah, bakso is hard to find over here, especially the noodles. It’s rice vermicelli but has a blue tint that I haven’t seen around here.

      I don’t really mind eating in places like this. I’ve drank rainwater in Sri Lanka from a barrel on top of a shack for tea coz that’s what the locals do.

      I’m more of an experience kinda guy. πŸ˜€

      Reply
    • Yeah, Bali is a fun place…you can go each time and still find a new thing to do. It’s a rather large island, come to think of it, and the different areas have different attractions. πŸ™‚

      Cheers mate!

      Reply
    • Oh yeah, the bakso is awesome! My friend wanted to eat it the day after again, so we went. Heh.

      Their bakso is different from the ones we get over here – the noodles has a bluish tint to it but it’s the meatballs that’s awesome. I’ve had ones the size of my fist, homemade and almost medium rare on the inside due to the huge size, despite cuts down the middle to ensure semi-even cooking.

      I like the taste of the broth too. I’m not a soup kinda person but the spicy and tasty bakso soup made me into a firm believer. πŸ˜€

      Reply
  2. Hey we walked along this exact beach and chanced upon this stall too when we were there last month! Talk about coincidence! But we didn’t try this out as I wasn’t sure how it will turn out πŸ™‚

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    • Hello Cheryl! πŸ™‚

      Legian beach eh? They have this really good bebek betutu (spiced duck) along the road too.

      Heh! Nice coincidence! I really wanted to try it so I went even while it was raining. Had the bebek betutu across the road for lunch so was stuffed until evening. πŸ˜€

      Reply
    • Well, it’s not really a big secret.

      She doesn’t mind her photos going up – she just didn’t want to be in the Poppies Lane II party post, which is quite understandable, and which I probably won’t write about anyway.

      I, for my own reasons, wanted the mosaic to be on that photo too – it covers more than just her. πŸ˜‰

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    • Haha! I think that’s impossible considering the amount of people that eats there. πŸ™‚

      He’s washing it somewhere, just don’t know where. πŸ˜€

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    • Smart! I think that’s the most likely idea too…washing it in seawater won’t actually clean it.

      Happy New Year to you too! πŸ˜€

      Reply
  3. When I was in Lake Toba a few days back, we had mee bakso by the roadside too. He just simply put the bowls into ONE bucket of water, took them out and wiped with a piece of ‘reusable’ cloth. Ignored it and still finished the bowl of bakso. πŸ˜€

    Reply
    • Nice! Haha! I don’t mind eating street food, it has character and you’re eating what the locals eat anyway.

      Interesting anecdote. πŸ˜€

      Reply

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