BALI - part three:... NXT

 

The last time [2017] we visited our long-time friend Joel... a fellow foodie living in Bali,  he raved about a restaurant in Ubud called Locavore. Of course we we went, to discover one unique more-than-a-meal. It was an experience. I watched chefs plating food using tweezers!

Now for some months, as we planned the recent trip [November 2024], he was raving even more-so about... Locavore NXT.  I'm as curious as I might be skeptical... what's next!?

The experience begins with a drive down a long single lane driveway enclosed with tall old walls;  

there's an occasional gate, but little room for another vehicle. A set-up for an adventure! But then we come to a generous parking ramp seemingly tucked into the foliage... the first indication of the careful design of what becomes more a farm than garden. 

 

In fact, it is rather raw land. A feature catching my eye was a bamboo lattice leaning above a muddy plot. I deduced that it was a tool used to examine, analyze & catalogue the biomass of this plot of soil by means of this grid of a few square centimeters. 

This is not at all just another eatery, even if it is the latest child of a growing family of experimental  foodie ventures. We had marveled at a 20+ course menu featuring very local foods when dining at Locavore, which menu included baby wild field birds, skewered  & roasted whole...

So now... here... we are really off into the mud & weeds!

But we are also entering a sophisticated  piece of architecture. An elegant structure designed so naturally as to become almost invisible... a display case for a concept. This obviously has very deep thinking investors! 

To begin, we listen to a recorded welcome & introduction to the concept...

  With a wall of living specimens collected in jars behind us, we begin to perceive that we are in a laboratory for the immersive study of the biome of this place. 

 

To begin, trays were presented by young acolytes who were teach/learning their craft...

Introducing us to some of the variety from the land...

We are invited to examine, & touch... &, invited to play! To rearrange an arrangement of wild flora while we sip an elixir of some kind.

I was fascinated 'trying to suss what those specimens might be...

Being encouraged to play with our food was certainly not a problem! We continued taking lessons, meeting the two co-creating owner/partners [one of whom is the chef] who explain their dedication to the philosophy -- & realization that all must play, actually play!, with this life of learning.

We also need to play it smart!... as explained in part of the menu:

Knowing now the over-arching concepts,  we are properly prepped, as we move under the palm-like spread of the bar's roof,  to pass through the ornately carved & gilded doors of the elaborate portal... & actually enter... 

We visited  any number of spaces & places as the meal's education proceeded to present the potential of this institution of teach/learning:

 

The mushroom cellar was a rather eerie, low lighted space with a stairway down into red light... a very high tech mushroom cellar...

Then up to a demonstration of the digital library housing all the data being collected.

A food lab... as if this entire operation isn't that!

The food laboratory sported a group drawing made by the chefs toward a menu...

The entire staff is attending what is a live college course in food.

This is an aerial view of the entire campus:

A fermentation lab...

Meat curing facility...

After all these pieces adding to our education... 

 

At last, the dining room... 

Satisfyingly spacious design. 

Lively staff... front back & center ... cooking, prepping, plating...  all with attentive personal development as part of the service. 

Contemplation was in evidence. This is a school...

The meal of myriad courses was conflated by those side trips to the mushroom cellar; fermentation, aging  processes; numerous areas with high tech tools.

The descriptions on the menu... of which I did not keep a copy... would not communicate so well as these images...

 

 Several of those might could have been dessert!

  ... Still, there is always more... 

We were, after all, celebrating Joel's 76th birthday... postponed from last year, when the planning for this month's travel in Asia was first being planned.

HUZZAH!

SPEAKING OF PLATES & BOWLS...

Searching for places to eat was half the fun... sometimes hinting at what is served behind the typical curtains.

After all those garden tours we were predictably hungry. I've made some mention that the food was remarkable, so, as would be expected we made a full cart of food porn. We enjoyed some fancy fine dining yet there were also so many noteworthy casual meals... like this one offered near the palaces... simply satisfying.

There is a story we never heard about the symbolism of lanterns outside bars & restaurants...

We nosed out one favorite meal  in one of the back streets of Kyota's Ginza [the geisha quarter] where one must simply celebrate blind adventure. This Korean style grill became a heaven of sake glasses filled to a generous overflowing into the saucer... we were encouraged by gestures of our impressario waiter to pour back into our glasses. This was the generous style of the place as we were provided ample quantities of good fish. meat & vegetables to grill at our whim.

It was a sweetly simple operation...  just the two of them.

We both were quite happy & did indeed consider coming back the evening we made the unfortunate mistake of trying to dine in the Chinese pomposity of a restaurant in out Myako Hotel...

Many meals included a sushi course... We also had entire meals of raw fish.

I bought these boxes of typical fast food in a train terminal for one leg of travel... perfectly tasty!

 I do not know what the leaves were... 'didn't taste like shiso...

 

Big department stores are famous for amazing elaborate food markets in their basement floors... quite  fulsome simply to peruse with one's amazed eyes, although they were giving many samples as well. Additionally they have a variety of good restaurants on their upper floors as well. During a late lunch in one of those, I noticed after eating everything, that the service was notably artful.

A typical meal has numerous small dishes & bowls presenting the courses.

Before all meals a moist, usually warm, napkin was presented on a tray. In fast-food places they were pre-packaged in plastic.

The chopsticks are always presented on a decorative a rest right in front...

Our phones or cameras somehow seemed to become part of the service...

In a ryokan... a traditional Japanese Inn... one is served in one's rooms by a maid dedicated to guests for the entire stay... This is the opening of our first such private dinner... served by Myoko... who was running the food from a distant kitchen, sometimes serving several rooms at the same time! One could hear her vigorous footsteps along the passageway.

There had been something quite tasty in that carefully cut lime shell...

& a ginkgo berry on that little forked bamboo pick...

While I'm pretty facile with my knife work... I discover my obvious need to practice!

Abundant fish! Often raw as sushi. Cooked all sorts of ways...

A little pastry purse filled with... mushrooms, I think...

A menu for one of the meals served in our room at Yoyokaku.

 Breakfast at the ryokan was served in a separate dining room at the time of our choice, determined the night before. We arrived to trays with the basic meal: a porridge of rice or barley; miso, usually with clams; an egg custard; various pickles; a whole small crispy fried fish & a bowl of rice. 

Since tea was always served with breakfast, we were offered coffee afterwards in the library lobby...

Shabu-Shabu is richly veined beef with vegetables... cooked at the table in a slow dance resulting in a delicious broth to sip at the end...

Stevie likes!

An extraordinary lunch had been set-up for us by edict from Terry-san at a pristine sushi restaurant with only six seats... which we had to ourselves. There was nothing extraneous to the gorgeous slabs of wood on which the morsels were created & served individually in front of each place. The chef, with bleached hair & ears with big piercings never spoke. He minced & obsessively wiped the wood surfaces at ever turn. This became  fascinating theater!

His first act was to vigorously grate fresh wasabi into a fluffy mass, sett aside next to a container of rice. This process required several wiping rituals, sometimes of surfaces which had hardly recovered from the last time!

Carefully lifting a covered tin containing a single fillet of a precious fish from a refrigerator beneath, he artfully sliced two thin slices Then, wiping both the top of the lid & the bottom of that container, replaced it. Deftly he sculpted a lump of rice tickled with a bit of wasabi & topped with a slice of the  fish, laid side by side to be picked up as a pair to be gently brushed with a glaze of soy sauce before being presented to us. We learned later we were expected to pick them up with our own fingers instead of the chopsticks we used.

This became the form for a dozen courses, each from another tin, wiped top & bottom, sliced & assembled

 One course was grilled hidden inside a cabinet...

 We were given our first taste of Ginkgo berries as a minimal ancillary course...

 This experience would seem to be our prime example of current hauteur-couture in Japan. Stephen described it as perhaps the most expensive lunch ever...

 Our last meal at Yoyokaku featured hand-made calligraphic place mats by our host's wife...

 Our last night in Tokyo...

The meat case at the restaurant where we ate the last night in Tokyo before flying home...

Returning to Tokyo for one last night before flying home, we met friends of Terry-san for our fourth meal of the fantastic Kobe beef... this time as Sukiyaki... seared in an iron pot with a sauce. We were given the richest eggs [from high altitude hens we were told giving them that intense golden color] whipped raw as a dipping sauce! The resultant intense flavor one must suppose coated our arteries for several days! Dessert was thankfully a simply lush peach sorbet.

 A green tea ice cream cone hit the spot one warm afternoon!