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Bearing in mind that our mini-break to Bali was a spontaneous and relatively unplanned trip the holiday’s budget was a little tighter than I am normally accustomed to.  It was our fourth night and we had already eaten at some very impressive restaurants such as Ku De Ta and La Lucciola.  These were wonderful meals but they came at prices that are comparable to those back in Perth. To add to the situation it is only a year before our wedding date (WOOT!) and the boy was getting justifiably concerned about our spending habits knowing full well that we still had our Sydney trip the following week!

Once again by recommendation, this time from one of our travelling companions who came with us last year in Phuket, we made the journey in the torrential monsoon rain to the more built up southern part of Seminyak to Chez Gado Gado. On entry into this opulent venue I started to worry that I had inadvertently chosen another pricy restaurant. Thankfully after scanning the menu I was relieved to see that things were all very reasonably priced despite the external appearance of the restaurant being quite fancy.

We were greeted promptly by the maître D who had been kindly informed in advance by our hotel reception of my dietary requirements.  She explained she would get the chef to come to our table so I could discuss the menu directly with him.  The executive chef is Quirijn Rademaker, a Dutchman who has been working at Gado Gado for the past 4 years having previously come from Shy restaurant in Jakarta.  He was keen and energetic and offered to adapt a number of options off his menu for me.  I was eyeing off the terrine of smoked and cured salmon with crab, pomelo and sour cream vinaigrette.  He said although the terrine is not suitable, he could make me a salmon carpaccio and accompany it with a dill mustard cream, fresh fennel and the pomelo.  I haven’t tried salmon with citrus before – it sounds like a pretty weird thing to combine, but surprisingly it really worked and I was suitably impressed.

Butter poached slipper lobster with crab ravioli, spinach and kaffir beurre blanc

The boy ordered the lobster ravioli which I obviously couldn’t taste but looked really flavoursome.  Having eaten out for a number of nights in a row, he was starting to get a little weary of my repeated and incessant questions regarding the taste of his meals so I didn’t get much of a description from him other than “delicious”.

Roasted duck breast with terrine of the leg, sweet and sour beetroot, potato gratin and Sichuan jus

After such fresh and saporous entrees, unfortunately our main meals were lacklustre by comparison.  The potato gratin was served lukewarm and tasted like it had been re-heated.  The jus contained onion so the chef made an alternate sauce for me that was too peppery and didn’t balance well with the sweetness of the beetroot and duck.  None of the dish was unpleasant by any stretch of the imagination, just mismatched and poorly combined.

We had also ordered some sides of sautéed mushrooms and zucchini with mint and garlic.  These sides were seemingly forgotten and I had to remind the waiter that we ordered them.  They didn’t come out until we had finished our mains completely.  The sautéed mushrooms were juicy and tasty but the zucchini was soggy with excessive oil and was intensely overloaded with garlic.  After overdosing on our garlic we had no room left for dessert and tried to make the most of the break in the rain and head back to the villa. As soon as we had paid the bill and were heading out the front door to hail ourselves a cab – the heavens opened up again and the tropical downpour continued!  We got thoroughly soaked!

Travelling to Bali?  Be sure to check out the Lonely Planet Bali and Lombok Travel Guide before you go!