I can certainly understand the difference in quality between a lady cooking for the love of it and an enterprise for the profit. Mass production probably never did anything good for good food.

What sweet sorrow, but is better to have tasted and lost it, than never to have tasted it at all (exept for the last few thousand customers or so).

Next time I’ll just have to search and ask around for some auntie still doing her traditional craft, unspoiled by too many more of the likes of you and me! I’m certain that authenticty will always be reinvented somewhere.

In the meanwhile, good hunting to the rest of you and do everybody a favour, don’t tell the world when you do find that quintessential food experience. I certainly would think twice from now on.

“OK. No question about it. This is the best pig I’ve ever had. Absolutely, the best. I mean is there anything more beautiful? Do you think that even the finest French chef could ever come up with anything as delicious or as beautiful as this? I think not. It’s the mountain-top of pork. And I am there.”

This hyperbolically loaded review caused tons of tourists to make the “pilgrimage” to Ubud, Bali to try Ibu Oka’s Babi guling. To make matters worse, virtually every food critic, travel writer and almost everyone else, probably due to a deference to Bourdain’s “expert opinion” and like the “Emperor without clothes” agrees with Bourdain’s assessment wholeheartedly for fear of appearing unknowledgeable!

That is not too reprehensible by itself, but causing thousands of food lovers to travel thousands of km to taste “the mountain top of pork” which even “the finest French chef” could not hope to match, is a travesty!

Granted that taste can be subjective, but surely food critics owe it to their viewers/readers to remain objective?

What my friends and I experienced was a sinking feeling of letdown when we bit into the crackling. You would need steel teeth like the movie villain “Jaws” in the James Bond epic, “The spy who loved me” and “Moonraker”. How many of us remember that movie giant? Without his steel cladded mandibles, you’d NEVER be able to bite into Ibu Oka’s Babi guling!

We felt so sick in the stomach that we swore never to believe food critics again.

In closing, isn’t it about time that we demand that food critics get real? If nothing else, at least for their own professional integrity? Bourdain and all the others: Are you taking this in?

Are you sure it was the pork itself, or just some of the condiments that gave you the food poisening? Either way, it wouldn’t stop me from having a go at it again. The pork I remember, is well worth a food poisening (just read my earlier posting).

Over the years I’ve had several food poisenings on three continents and when all has passed I only maintain a physical recollection of the foods themselves, not the sickness.

So who cares, what doesn’t kill you after all….. .

I’m sure, you will be back also soon – the way you rave about Ubud! And with the approaching cold season in Europe, Bali is really just a half day flight away. Amsterdam-Jakarta-Denpasar and you can cover your cravings in the most fulfilling way.

Erika, thanks for the friendly comment! I had the chance of eating pork near Manado already, when visiting Bunaken and Pulau Gangga and can confirm, that it’s really really good! Thanks for the recommendations!

Although I don’t know who Bobby Chinn is?