Diversify Your Palate By Eating in Warung

When you crave indonesian's traditional cuisine, warung could be one of the best options available.Generally, it is a small family owned business that serves homemade meal and in a buffet style. And, during my stay in Bali, it has been a part of my daily life.

In Indonesia, warung tends to serve local cuisine with fairly reasonable price. However, overtime, the term warung has shifted to a place where it sells indonesian meal. On the contrary, the pricing comes with a service tax. It tends to equal as a restaurant but to indicate the culture of Indonesia, business owner will add warung in front of their business's name.

I happen to visit a place called "warung nikmat", owned by a family from east-java. They serve various vegetarian and non-vegetarian options in a buffet style. The place is located close by the beach and the tourist shopping center. Food wise, their meals are freshly cooked with fresh ingredients and different menu everyday. In this warung, a customer generally spends about 15k Indonesian rupiah to 25k indonesian rupiah for a plate of a meal. In a traditional warung like this, they generally don't have an employee. The servers are either their children or relatives but not an outsiders.

The settings is almost similar in many parts of Indonesia. As we can see from the picture below:

If you happen to travel to Indonesia, do not hesitate to eat at warung. I assure you these people understand about hygiene as well. As I previously mentioned, to really immense in a culture, one has to taste the local's cuisine.

Below is an example of a meal that you can get from a warung,

That consisted of vegetables cooked in various styles, an egg cooked in a traditional sauce and a fried tofu.

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I would say, spending 15kIDR/meal is a reasonable price living like an Indonesian. It's generally difficult to find a food from warung that will cost less than 15kIDR unless you are cooking on your own.

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