Ibu Oka’s Babi Guling

Address Along Jln Suweta opposite the Ubud Tourist Information Centre (behind the Banjar community hall) Ubud, Bali

Opening Hours 11am to 4pm daily

When makan pal and TV food show host Tony Bourdain first tucked into Babi Guling in Indonesia, it sent him into a monologue of superlatives about the virtues and appeal of the dish, basically roasted pork and rice with spices. And when local foodie kaki (pal) Chia Boon Pin from the Far East Group touches on the subject of Peranakan Babi Pangang (roasted pork), it distracts him totally from his fervent en-bloc aspirations.

Ooh, the appeal of this sometimes forbidden meat and animal.

When I first had Babi Guling in Bali, which can be considered the island’s national dish, it was at Ibu Oka’s, just like Tony. Google her and alongside many recipes for the dish, her stall’s name keep coming up tops as results. The first time I wrote about her some eight years back, I had similar reactions like Mr No Reservations (his show on the Discovery Channel), who went into a verbal tizzy and retracted his earlier musings about his porky adventures in Spain. Then he crunched into the lonely piece of crackling that came in the dish and all hell broke loose - he swore that nobody can roast a pig like the Balinese can. I can vouch for that, to a certain extent, only because I have had suckling pig rice in Guangzhou, China. But that’s another story.

Ibu Oka Chopping

Ibu Oka’s can very easily be described as the most famous, and the best, warung (food stall) in Bali. Even the average taxi driver there will totally agree. The island of Bali has an overwhelming majority population of Hindus, hence, pork is well loved there. My first encounter with her little warung in Ubud, Bali, was some ten years ago, at the behest of our tour bus driver there, who suggested lunch at Ibu Oka’s when I said I’ll eat the way he did. Her little stall then, sits at the back of a community hall in the heart of Ubud, opposite the local market, shaded directly under a huge Bodhi tree. Customers sit out in make shift tables and on the barefoot on the floor of the raised back stage hall. I ate there everyday I was in Ubud. She’ll appear at about 10.30am, gracefully balancing a fully grilled pig of about 35kg on her head, and saunter towards her stall from her kitchen some distance away.. She’ll take all of half an hour to chop the pig, remove the spices inside, separate the crackling, mince the innards with grated coconut, spices and chillis to make sausages with the stomach lining and prepare her very alluring chili sambal. The chopped meat is then tossed with the oils and spices that escaped from the butchering.

Ibu Oka's Babi Guling

Then she plates her first portion for the day- a bed of soft yet firm Balinese long grained rice topped with pieces of pork, crispy intestines, chilli innards and coconut sausage, with a dollop of sambal, blessed with spices and covered with a little piece of heaven- a golden brown crispy skin crackling. The secret to the crackling, as revealed in Tony’s show, was that they constantly wet the animal with fresh sweet coconut water as they grill over charcoal fire. It help caramelizes the texture of the skin.

It was 6000 rupiahs (about $1.20cts) a portion, then.

Today she grills up to five pigs a day to feed the manic foodies and tourist from all over the world. You hear ooohs and wows in Japanese and Strine (Australian) accents, including an occasional “shiok”, among the hundreds of customers there each day. It is the same old dish, served in the same old little basket lined with waxed paper (omits the need for washing, very sensible), but this time around it’s 20,000 rupiahs per serving.

Then there is Mr Chia’s favourite Babi Pangang, Nonya style. This method has south Chinese origins and it is essentially roasted layered fatty pork with a perfect crackling. The Perabakans, bless their fussiness, serve it with pickled vegetables to counter the heaviness and dribble sweet black soy sauce over it.

He (and me) get our fix from Guan Hoe Soon, the oldest registered Peranakan restaurant in Singapore dating back to 1953. Their approach to getting the perfect crispy and spongy crackling is hard work, they keep scoring the skin with a little spiky hammer every few minutes in the oven. The idea is to “breathe air” in to the skin as it roasts.

Have that on a bed of rice and you’ll understand why it is so well loved by regulars that boss Raymond Ou-Yong decided to only offer it on weekends as “ you cannot have too much of good thing. It kills the desire.”

Guan Hoe Soon Peranakan Restaurant

Address 214 Joo Chiat Road

Opening Hours 11am-3pm, 6pm-9pm daily except Tuesdays

Telephone 63442761