BALI – NAUGHTY NURI’S WARUNG

The first stop on my South East Asia honeymoon was 5 days in beautiful Bali. One of the best perks of The Hubby travelling for work all the time is the hotel points he racks up. Using these points we stayed at the St. Regis resort in Nusa Dua and had the budget to hire a private driver to take us around the island, which I highly recommend. Having a driver allowed us to explore all areas of Bali with ease. We could just name a popular restaurant or attraction and our driver typically knew the best route, where to find the entrance and/or buy tickets. Another perk was air conditioning inside the SUV and built in naps while on the road.

We spent our first day near Ubud, exploring rice fields, sampling luwak coffee and hanging out with the free roaming monkeys at the Sacred Monkey Forest. Aggressive, people friendly monkeys. We were advised to not bring in any food and keep all bags zipped up. The monkeys would happily jump on you at the whiff of anything edible, they could also open zippers to get to hidden treats. One monkey latched onto The Hubby right as we walked in and ripped a small bottle of antibacterial handwash right off his back back zipper. Later on, another monkey jumped on me, unzipped my backpack and proceeded to rummage around inside before getting bored. Aside from the involuntary monkey interaction, visitors could also buy bananas from villagers tending the park to feed them. Holding the bananas up in the air, monkeys climbed onto your shoulder and snacked away. This was fun but also a tad terrifying when the banana attracted multiple climbers.

Before all that excitement, we stopped by Naughty Nuri’s Warung for lunch. Famous for their BBQ pork ribs and being tourist friendly, our meal did not disappoint. The grill was set up roadside, tempting passersby with smokey goodness. We sat at a wooden picnic table under an awning near the grill so we could watch the ribs being cooked. Being the middle of the afternoon, only a few tables were taken and the atmosphere was laid back. Naughty Nuri has multiple locations in Bali and the one in Ubud was designed to be like a traditional warung, a small, roadside stall.

An English menu was available but with limited descriptions. We ended up ordering fried noodles, mie goreng, and of course ribs. While simple in ingredients, the flavour of the noodles were balanced with lots of vegetables and sauce. The ribs were phenomenal. Smokey, charred and fall off the bone, we licked every rib clean. Our meal was super satisfying. Naughty Nuri’s is also well known for their martinis but we passed on the heavy day drinking opportunity. Instead we stuck to splitting a large bottle of Bintang beer to cool us in the hot afternoon.