This restaurant is quite famous so I decided on this while looking for a good restaurant in Bali. Located in Seminyak area, this restaurant is housed in a villa of it’s own, well away from the over-crowded Kuta beach area.

Indian inspired crackers while waiting for our food.

The food served here is Asian inspired, with flavours from Thailand, Indonesia, and even India. Being Asian myself, I wasn’t too impressed with this mix of cuisines, feeling a bit skeptical because usually having a mixed menu means lack of authenticity (and quality) of each dish, but there must be reason for the acclamation so I decided to chuck the biasness aside and just try.

With ambiance like this, I can see why it’s so popular. This is the kind of setting you see in movies. It’s casual yet classy, a bit exotic and a pleasant place for birthday dinners perhaps.  You won’t find anything remotely close to this in Singapore! At this point it is quite worrying because with such pretty ambiance, could the good reviews be due to the ambiance and not the food?

Signature crispy pork belly with Sichuan chilli salt tamarillo and tamarind sauce

This pork is unique and like nothing I’ve ever tried. I’m glad to say that this combination actually worked and it was one of the best dishes tonight.

Grilled whole squid with young coconut ginger flower mint lemongrass & kaffir lime green nam jihm

This seems like a Thai inspired salad and I liked the burst of flavours in this dish.

Poached prawns with green mango lemongrass micro lemon basil chilli & Ikan asin manis

This one was recommended by the staff and it was another refreshing appetizer to have. It was better than most Thai mango salads I’ve had in Singapore.

Butter chicken with cashew nuts ginger garam masala kasoori methi & tomato sauce

This one was really good. Perhaps better than all the butter chickens from North Indian restaurants in Singapore. It was recommended as their best item and indeed it was. Ordered some naan and basmati rice to go along.

Ajwani seafood Tikka with prawn squid scallop & fish marinated with cream gram flour ajwani & garam masala

This one has Indian flavours too (which is something I grew to love in 2015!). I like the variety of seafood in here.

Wood roasted Balinese style barramundi wrapped in banana leaf sambal matah & kangkung plecing

So far all fish I’ve had in Bali is on the dry side and this was no exception.

“Bebek Madura” twice cook duck with sambal mangga & Balinese sambals

I’m not that familiar with Balinese cuisine but it seems like crispy duck is rather popular. I decided to try it here, after having lunch at Dirty Duck in the afternoon. The version at Dirty Duck was so fried, you can’t tell what’s meat and what’s bones. I would say the duck at Sarong has more meat, but is less crispy. Not a must try in my opinion.

Sample plate of South East Asian desserts – IDR 110.000

In my honest opinion, I don’t like the taste of milk from Indonesia. All the milk products (ice cream, chocolate) isn’t palatable to me (disclaimer: I do not like the taste of milk and can only take certain milk like Japan’s milk, while those with really strong milk taste eg. MilkCow Korean soft serve will make me feel sick). Therefore the desserts weren’t super fantastic, but I like how they offer a dessert platter which makes sharing easier.

I had expected this mean to cost a lot since this place is famous and the ambiance is nicely done up, but it cost much less than anticiapted! It worked out to be around S$30/pax (and that’s including overeating towards the end) which is such a steal in Singapore. You can’t even be fed this full with $30 at BaliThai (just a convenient example to compare with, since that’s the only restaurant I know of that serves both Indonesia and Thai cuisine) and the ambiance isn’t even of the same league (I’m not being subjective, BaliThai is a mass market family friendly chain restaurant so ambiance is not priority there). For an experience like this, I expected $60 – $80/pax honestly.

Though there were some hits and misses from this meal, it was a good experience overall and I highly recommend this place if you want somewhere nice to dine at! Great for birthday dinners, hen’s night. The ambiance is too beautiful to not love and the food did hit expectations, just that it didn’t blow me over. It’s also good for a romantic date but you probably can’t try that many items if it’s just 2 pax.

Sarong
Jl. Petitenget No. 19X, Kerobokan, Kuta Utara, Kabupaten Badung, Bali 80361, Indonesia