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Early dinner at the hotel: part of the menu, prices are in Indonesian Rupiah (thousands). So the 180 is 180,000 IDR or about $11 at the current rate of exchange (16,700 IDR to 1 USD). So food prices, even at the resort are not expensive. non-cakey bread with seaweed butter This was supposed to be the local baronang fish, but they said that it wasn't very fresh today so they substituted a different fish - I'm not sure what it was but it tasted a little like mackerel. The sambal made with young mango (mangga muda) is traditional from the region and one of the things I had wanted to try while here. This was served with: Cassava leaves in coconut milk with smoked beef and rice with corn in it. Both the corn and cassava leaf dish is typical in the region. The coconut milk dish was so smoky - it was fantastic. This is the se'i babi (pork), another of the traditional foods of the area. These two dishes are basically the majority of the specialties of the region. The se'i here was ok - some had a bit of grizzle and it wasn't really that smoky. Dessert menu A traditional dessert - this is the kelepon gula merah. Gula merah is the name for local palm sugar. Here, the green mochi-like skin (made from sticky rice) is stuffed with palm sugar and steamed. Then coated with fresh shredded coconut, with a palm sugar/coconut sauce. I could have eaten 5 of these!

I like that oil and vinegar dispenser. It looks like it would be a nightmare to clean, though. Better to leave it in the hands of a restaurant with rapid turnover?

Back at the hotel for lunch.... Typical cake-bread served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar I thought I asked for a lime juice, but got some iced tea with lime. Grilled garupa with a sliced shallot/tomato sambal and fried sambal merah. There's rice under the leaf cone. Ayam (chicken) betutu typically from Bali, served with sambal matah, tempe cooked in sweet soy sauce and boiled singkong (cassava) leaves. It was pretty good, but I'm sorry to say that the airport version had a lot more flavor.

We were in Labuan Bajo for 2 days. Most tourists use the city as the jumping off point for excursions for snorkeling/diving around the area, going to Komodo or Rinca island to see the dragons (those are the only two places they live in the wild) as well as hiking on Padar island for amazing views and a unique pink sand beach. Our plan was to have a relatively sedate first day - visiting a local market in Labuan Bajo, eating some local food and basically just resting a bit after the long travel to get there so we can be well rested for diving in a few days. The 2nd day was to be excursions to see the dragons and hike Padar island. To get to any of the excursion areas, you need to take a boat - most excursions companies use small speed boats that can take 6-8 people, although the area is frequented by tons of what are called "liveaboards" which are boats that hold about 25 people and are like floating hotels - they go throughout the area and the customers can scuba dive or snorkel 4-5 times a day, so they're constantly changing locations. December is the time when the weather starts to shift from the dry season to the rainy season. The weather isn't usually too bad - just some isolated showers from time to time. So we brought our wet weather hiking gear (be prepared!). Breakfast was included in our hotel room rate. The breakfast buffet at this hotel was pretty good, although there were some funny idiosyncracies.... DIY Soto ayam - chicken soup - station... tempe crackers on top... Pandan kuih Really good pineapple Here's where it gets funny - they made a point to have nasi kunyit - yellow rice - but it's usually served with a bunch of sides like a Malaysian nasi lemak or Indonesian nasi campur but with yellow rice - but there were no typical sides! Just the rice... weird.... anyway, also available were some kind of mashed potato tater-tot type thing, fried noodles, chicken sausage, and shrimp chips. They also had sambal ijo (green) and sambal merah (red) which are typically from the Padang region. My wife has a mild sambal ijo addiction and had tons of it with a plate full of shrimp chips. They also had plenty of options that western travelers typically enjoy - yogurt/cereal/egg station/salad, etc. After breakfast, we decided to talk to the excursion desk about a trip for the next day and found out that all excursions were currently canceled. They didn't mention why at the time, but we found out later that there was a boat accident the evening before and they closed the whole area for search and rescue. It turned out that a coach for the female Valencia football team and his family were on a boat which capsized. The crew of 4, tour guide, his wife and youngest daughter survived, but the coach and 3 other children were missing. This is a huge tragedy - but many of the locals were very unhappy as they said that this kind of thing happens from time to time to locals and the government never shuts anything down for search and rescue, but because it happened to a western tourist (who is somewhat famous), there was a lot of international pressure to make it look like they were doing something about it. One thing to note is that the Komodo area is known for having very strong currents, so the probability of finding anyone after an accident like that is very small. One of the children was found a few days later by a local person near a mostly uninhabited island (there are a lot of small islands that only have one house or a very small village in this area). News reports say another body was found a day or so ago, leaving two still missing. As of now, I gather that the whole area is still shut down as the search continues. While many of the locals we spoke to were saddened by the tragedy, they were also upset at the loss of their livelihood. Tourism is the main economy of the area, and while the waterways are shut down, no tourism can happen - so many tourists who were supposed to stay there for a week or so wound up cutting their trip short, or went to Bali or another area. At the time we were there, there was no visibility as to when the waterways would reopen - everything was changing day by day and hour by hour - so we decided to stay and make the best of it. So, we decided to hang around the resort the first day, and then go to the market area on the second day in Labuan Bajo. Getting around the area is not convenient - there is no real taxi service, Uber, Grab or otherwise. The only Grab they have is motorbike taxis but we are definitely too nervous to ride on the back of a motorbike. So the only option was using the hotel shuttle which drops people off either at the airport or at the marina area of Labuan Bajo. It also turned out that I forgot the underwater housing for my GoPro camera, so we decided to head into Labuan Bajo to a dive store to get a new one. There isn't much to see in the downtown of Labuan Bajo - mostly stores/restaurants geared to tourists - Starbucks, KFC, dive shops, etc. We did take a look around the marina area: view of some of the closer islands and boats parked in the marina - the larger boats in the center of the photo are liveaboard dive boats. This is a strip of night market stalls - most of them selling grilled fish/seafood in the evening. We were only in Labuan Bajo for the first couple of days when we get really tired early, so we never made it to see it at night. Most blogs I've read about it say that it's nothing special - but it still would have been nice to see. This is the back side of the night market area - lots of picnic table seating for the grilled fish.

Taco salads last night

I am so looking forward to reading more!

Hey everybody, happy new year and welcome to yet another KennethT SE Asia foodblog. This time around, we went to an area of Indonesia called Komodo, a collection of small islands that are home to the Komodo Dragon as well as some spectacular scuba diving. Unfortunately, this trip was besieged by bad luck practically from start to finish, so I hope this report won't be too disappointing for you to read... although it was disappointing for us, but I think we made the best of it. The good news is that this was another illness free trip! A Festivus miracle! As usual lately, we flew via Singapore Airlines direct from NYC to Singapore on what is constantly touted as the "world's longest flight" - about 9500 miles. The plane is broken up into only 2 classes - business and premium economy. Since we've racked up a bunch of miles lately, we wound up getting their frequenty flyer program Gold Status, which allowed us entry to the Capital One lounge in NY's JFK airport. We wanted to be in there, primarily, as it would be less crowded than the terminal itself and we've been quarantining for over a month to make sure that we arrived healthy. We found a relatively secluded spot in the lounge and you could order snacks, via your phone and a QR code, that would be delivered to your table: Short rib sliders with meat from Pat LaFrida (a well known butcher here in NYC). Food on the flight to Singapore can be found here, here, here and here. Unfortunately, we didn't have a very long layover, shortened even more as we landed a little late... so we didn't get a chance to get chicken rice while in Terminal 2.... instead, we used the brief opportunity to try something that I've been wanting to try for many years but never had the chance to do so. Bee Cheng Hiang is a well known purveyor of bakkwa (started in 1933 in Singapore and have grown to over 300 locations in 11 countries) - a Malaysian/Singaporean barbequed jerky, typically made from pork, but they had a LOT of options. Here's just a few: The meat is first dried into jerky, then coated with some kind of sweet sauce and then grilled. We only tried the classic, original version, but it was delicious and addictive. If we weren't relatively full from the flight before and knowing we would be fed again on our next flight, and then eat again in the airport, etc, we could have gorged ourselves! But instead, we just got 100g to share while sitting outside the gate for the next flight. It's not so easy to get to the Komodo area - there are very few direct flights - most connect through Bali, which is an island just to the west. The Flores Sea is just to the north of Komodo - named for one of the islands of the area. Here is a map of the kinda-sorta western half of Indonesia: The food on the flight to Bali can be found here. Here's the beginning of our bad luck - our flight from Singapore to Bali landed around 11AM, and we had originally scheduled the connection to the Komodo area (the main city called Labuan Bajo) to leave around 1:30, arriving around 2:30... A few months ago, the local airline decided to cancel the flight to Labuan Bajo and we were bumped to the flight leaving Bali at 5PM, landing at 6:15. So that means that we now have 6 hours in the Bali airport, after already flying for over 20 hours with a couple hour layover in between, plus we were working all day on the day we left... so to say we were tired by the time we got to Bali is understating things. The Bali airport has a capsule style "hotel" - it's basically a couple walls full of pods about the size of coffins that you can rent in 6 hour chunks. I neglected to take photos of it, but it's pretty accurately depicted on their website: https://passgo-digital-airport-hotel-bali.kutahotel.net/en/ It's pretty inexpensive and, while not very comfortable, it's definitely better than nothing. After attempting to take a few hour nap, we went to lunch at a Balinese restaurant in the airport, Made's Warung. A warung is a kind of road-side restaurant. They started in south Bali in 1969 and have now expanded to 8 restaurants - 2 in the airport (one in the domestic terminal, one in the international). This is the location in the international terminal, probably around 3PM, hence why it's not so busy. The basket on the table holds a bunch of kerupuk, or Indonesian crackers, of various kinds. There was a tempe based one, a fish based one and a vegetable based one. Lime juice... A Balinese specialty - ayam (chicken) betutu. For being in the airport, it was quite good. Served with a chicken sate lillet (on the stick) which is a minced chicken sate, fried chicken skin, lawar - which is a kind of cooked vegetable salad made with shredded coconut, peanuts and sambal matah - a "raw" sambal common in Bali. Fried chicken, served with sambal matah and sambal terasi (a fried chilli sauce made with shrimp paste) and was served with Some vegetables on the side. Then, finally, the local airline to Labuan Bajo, food from which can be found here. By the time we landed and collected our bags (which was surprisingly fast), and got to the hotel about 20 minutes away, we were so tired we weren't really hungry so we decided not to bother having dinner.

@Ann_T You always do Beef perfectly . Yum Yum

Tonight's dinner - Steak and Frites. Picked up two more of the Sterling Silver Top Sirloin cap steaks. The flavour is so good and the steaks very tender. Cooked on the grill and served with a wine sauce with twice fried "shoestring French fries".

I decided to bake something I haven't baked in probably 6 or 7 years - my Caramelized Onion and Poppy Seed baguettes. Started the dough with one of the small sourdough starters with the addition of yeast, for a same day bake. The initial mix After the 1st stretch and fold. Dough had three more stretch and folds before being left on the counter in a covered container for a room temperature bulk fermentation. Last batard was out of the oven by 3:30. After dinner tonight, Moe had a slice buttered.

Breakfast of ham omelette with toasted wholemeal bread.

Zingerman's annual "Balsamic Blowout" is back.

I went to the farmers market to buy turnip greens this morning and spotted this robiola in the cheese counter. The cheese smelled great thru the paper and it had right kind of squishy feel. I've decided to take a chance and brought a piece home. OMG it was perfect. The producer is Boxcarr Handmade Cheese in Cedar Grove NC. The price came out to be about $19/lb which is a bargain for artisanal cheese. Served with a sourdough bread from Craft Bakery.

I stopped at Sprouts this morning to pick up a couple of things. As I passed by the case with take and bake meals, I spotted a sign for meatballs for $2.99/lb. They expire tomorrow so were half price. I grabbed one. Since it was expiring, I popped it into the toaster oven a while ago. I had planned to just freeze for future use, but they smelled and looked so good I changed my supper plan. And dang, why didn't I buy another package, too!

Thanks for the clarification. I definitely prefer tortillas over the gas burner if available. Occasionally I will steam tortillas for a crowd.

Five-spice pork ribs: Marinated the ribs with soy sauce, fish sauce, 5-spice powder, garlic, sesame oil, sugar, cilantro, and whiskey. Grilled the ribs and then finished in the oven, mopping with marinade from time to time. Meat was chewy, which I expected, but quite delicious. I would love to try slow-smoked ribs with a similar marinade. Friend brought over green beans, and Mrs. C made falafel and tahini sauce. Sliced cucumbers, red bell peppers, and scallions to round out the meal.

I mentioned the dry pan method because we have a glass top electric stove here in AZ. When in MX I throw the tortillas directly on my gas burners a quick off and on. On the duck, brand is Maple Leaf Farms. I found it a tad tough the first few times I seared it (medium to med-high heat, 12 minutes). After research and trial/error, I now sear at low for 20 minutes, starting in a cold pan. I don't touch them during that time, other than to tilt the pan to spoon off (and reserve) the duck fat. Yesterday's result was the most tender with crispiest skin. I turn them over at the 20 minute mark for 3 or 4 minutes. Then I rest for another 7 minutes. It's not fast, but happy with outcome.

Thanks for that information. I expect to be out in the Yuma area in a few weeks. There are at least 2 Fry's there; maybe I can find duck breast at one of them! Thanks also for the tortilla-management information.

Some sort of mashup between a Beef with Broccoli and Jap Chae. King Oyster mushrooms, Chinese Broccoli and sweet potato noodles in a beef and broccoli sauce.

Last night I seared 2 duck breasts; one we made into a 'proper' dinner meal (see post in Dinner 2026). I saved the smaller 1 for today's lunch. fyi, I buy these at the Tucson grocery chain, Frys Foods; they come frozen 2 to a pack with no separation between them. Impossible to separate the breasts unless you thaw the entire pack. Lunch was the duck, fresh corn off the cob (surprisingly sweet for January), chopped green onions and cilantro. I quickly browned the flour tortillas in a hot and dry non-stick pan, immediately wrapping in foil to keep them soft. To assemble I slathered the open tortilla with hoisin sauce (and a few dots of siracha) before adding the fillings and rolling them up. We both agreed we liked this meal better than dinner last night.

Happy 2026, Everyone! Made this for new years day for dinner. It was lovely. THEN, something, a piece of shell broke a tooth! Luckily, my cousin and her hubby are dentists, and they took me in next morning even tho' the office was closed. Bouillabaisse from a Weight Watchers cookbook: Next day, even tho' I didn't have any residual pain. I took care to not bite down on the "cavity" Made wonton soup for dinner.

@Smithy more of those potatoes , please.

Last night I put together my down-and-dirty version of Potatoes Anna. No recipe. I sliced 2 russet potatoes as thinly as possible, used a cup of butter left over from a lobster dish, some half-and-half, garlic powder and smoked paprika, and baked at 400F. As it all finished I topped it with the last of some roasted broccoli and tomatoes. Then I didn't eat it, because I already had too much food for dinner. Some of it is lunch instead. Okay, it looks overcooked (the vegetables definitely are) but it's delicious. If this were a rice dish, I'd be saying "look at that tahdig!"

Leftover larb lettuce wraps, topped with a fried egg

Sausages, peppers and onions, and acorn squash.