Susi Johnston Bali Blog

Brand-new blog Kitchen InSurgency comes stuffed with witty commentary and epicurean insights. Author and newbie blogger, Karen Waddell puts her moxie where her mouth is, sharing secret recipes, kitchen tips and food lore from Bali. She and her husband Gusky are the pair behind Bali Good Food Co, who brought us Batan Waru,  Terazo, Siam Sally, Cinta Grill and the Cinta Inn in Ubud. Yummy. I’m downloading Karen’s recipes immediately.

As a suitable tribute to a marvelous material, here’s a chair by Colombian bamboo builder and designer Marcelo Villegas. While too much of newly-designed bamboo furniture looks like you have to give up something to use it (like comfort, stability and style, for example), Villegas’ works are artistic masterpieces and fulfill their comfort-functions admirably. We’ve heard that he’s involved in building and furniture design for the Nihiwatu villas expansion project on Sumba Island. Excellent news. Let this be an inspiration to us all, reach for the stars, and build a beautiful bamboo ladder to get there.

Biasa Artspace has been missing its mojo for months, during the extended absence of its founder, Susanna Perini. For most of 2010, a bevy of guest curators stepped in to keep the Biasa heart beating (“paddles, clear!”), with a round of satisfactory exhibitions – - most recently On Camera, a show by Indonesian photography collective MES 56.

While the show as a whole was out of focus, we found a few of the images oddly haunting. Foremost among them was Agung Nugroho Widhi’s Capturing a Moment in a Windy Garden Party, an archival print mounted on aluminium (detail above). Here tiny toys poignantly evoke the disaster of the Suburban Dream in poison plastic colours. The most cherished ideals of Indonesia’s aspirational middle class are exposed as nothing more than toxic trash, a sham, a cheap trick foisted on them by toy sellers. And the absence of people (or dolls) amid the tipped chairs and glasses smells like a neutron bomb. Read more…

Brand spanking new, and smack up against Biku Tea Room, here’s CARGA. It’s a retail emporium taking traditional Indonesian ideas and materials and throwing them sideways. In delightful ways. Tradition with a twist. Read more…

In case you were wondering what that big wall of old shutters is doing near the beach in Seminyak, it’s a multi-faceted development called Potato Head Beach Club brought to you by the makers of Potato Head Jakarta (above), a description-defying place that opened back in January 2009. The brainchild of Indonesian international art collectors, Ronald Akili and Jason Gunawan, Potato Head (Jakarta) is an arty party place (bar, resto, music venue, hang central) frequented by socialites, creatives and neo-yuppies. Akili and Gunawan founded Ark Galerie in Jakarta first, then exploded their ideas outwards into the world of food-bev-tainment with Potato Head, calling in cordon-bleu trained foodie Sandra Budiman as exec chef and co-conspirator. Rumour has it the same faces are behind the soon-to-launch Potato Head Beach project in Bali. And that’s what makes it so interesting. Read more…

This year there are only five places to go Christmas shopping in Bali. Number Two: Word of Mouth, on Jalan Kunti near Bali Deli. The place is a showroom-playroom with a cafe and bar. Talk about one stop shopping. If you have to find gifts for everyone on a long list, the last thing you want to do in Bali is go hauling around in traffic, parking and unparking, and fuming with frustration. With that in mind, I’m focusing on places where you can get fed, watered, and find gobs of great gifts without wasting your playtime. Word of Mouth meets all of the above requirements, and then some. Read more…

I was contacted a few months ago by a niche events organiser asking if I would provide a cultural morning in Ubud for a celebrity wedding in August. I always welcome the opportunity to infect influential people with my incurable passion for all things Balinese, and this particular party was heavier with heavy influencers than most. It was the wedding of Jonathan Rutherfurd Best, London’s longstanding maestro of fine fêtes, fine food, and all manner of general capriciousness (above). The ceremony itself was held at Linda Garland’s estate (below), and several hundred guests were accommodated there and in various villas and hotels round about for a week or so to celebrate the occasion.

After a knock-down-drag-out welcome luncheon for legions of global glitterati lasting until well after midnight, (as knock-down-drag-out luncheons will do), we slept like the dead the whole way home in the car, and the next morning rose early to infect a phalanx of guests with a bit of Bali mojo. I’d roped my friend Tjok Raka Kerthyasa into providing a palace welcome and private tour of the sancta sanctorum of his family, the inner courtyards of the the Ubud royal palace. We planned it for ten or twelve guests, but seventy turned up bright and early and bleary eyed, in spite of inclement weather. Tjok Raka then proceeded to charm the designer pants off of all present. He’s good at that. As a co-ruling prince, and Bendesa Adat of Ubud (grand poobah of all things traditional and religious), and as a member of the Bali parliament, he is uniquely qualified to transmit the stories and spirit of Bali as it is manifested in Ubud. And so he did. Read more…

This year there are only five places to go Christmas shopping in Bali. Number One: Deus Ex Machina in Canggu, otherwise known as the Temple of Enthusiasm. I’m enthusiastic about shopping here, not only because there’s something for everyone (it’s a one stop shop), but also because you can eat. And listen to great music. And there’s no traffic jam to get there. And there’s no problem parking. And you can shop until 9:30 at night. Bring the whole gang, feed yourselves, get your shopping done, and don’t squander any precious playtime stuck in traffic or having aggro over where to get what for who. Read more…

When in Bali, please take my advice and listen to word of mouth — meaning Word of Mouth Bali, of course, the showroom-playroom of Valentina Audrito (below, out in front) and Abhishekar Khumbat (below, third from left), on Jalan Kunti in Seminyak. Val and Abhi always colour outside the lines and stubbornly remain impossible to define. So who was surprised when they brought a French-Cameroonian Grammy-nominated act, Les Nubians to the stage right here in Bali, right here in their wacky playspace? Not me. I expect the unexpected from Word of Mouth, and that’s usually what I get. Read more…

I’ve just had another massive overdose of masterplans. I have feeds and searches set up to keep tabs on new developments in Bali. It just doesn’t stop. Here are just a handful of the scores of new projects that have drifted across my desktop lately. Read on, to get a glimpse of the multi-storey mayhem that’s happening all over the island. But go get yourself a drink first, you’ll need it. Read more…