Confessions of Decadence

Our Secret Family Indulgence.

Zest is a vegan restaurant perched on a cliff overlooking streets choked with tourist shops on one side and rice paddy ripples on the other. As you step from the taxi, you are greeted with a wall of wellness posters advertising Kundalini healing, ecstatic dance parties, and full moon tea ceremonies. Inside the restaurant, tropical trees shade Hindu goddess sculptures, Aztec wall art, and African masks. When I first entered with my family, I expected to see a magical dragon, stretched on the zebra print couch, vaping and puffing OM into the breeze. Instead digital nomads, instagram divas, and meditating yoginis, crowded the corners.

We find a nook next to a statue of Holy Mary and order our food from menus rife with metaphors and memes: “You are home, you are loved. We are one.” After a long wait, the waitress brings me the Moringa Medicine bowl,  a kaleidoscope of  local veggies drizzled with sauces, sprinkled with seeds and capped with flowers— “A hug in a bowl.” The waitress serves my girls their pizza. “Italian Mamma’s frown and Pacha Mamma smiles”—as they eat— “pizza without milking the cow. Mama Mia!” The girls tear apart their pizza dolloped with cashew cream, caramelized tomatoes, and “earth-kissed” goodness. Oh the culinary delights!

Due to the cooler mountain weather and rich volcanic ash soil, many of the farms north of Ubud provide inexpensive organic produce. At Zest, for our organic vegan gluten-free meal with drinks, sides and desserts, we paid about 10 dollars a person.  

For me, cooking healthy for my husband and making dinner tasty for the kids has been a challenge over the years. During the first year of our marriage, my husband had so many dietary preferences, I asked him to write them down. The list was seven pages! He wanted fresh instead frozen, brown instead of white, organic instead of “toxic,” and the list goes on. But here in Bali, our little family has carved out a piece of paradise by eating our way through the glorious veganic  restaurants of Ubud. The Happy Cow website lists around forty plant-based restaurants in this city alone! 

But our long list of health nut rules would not be complete without a secret indulgence. And here it goes: our ultimate confession.  My family is crazy about sweets. Yes, decadent, delectable, dairy-free desserts. As Bali has an abundance of coconut trees, many of the vegan sweets are made with coconut derived sugar, cream, flour and oil. 

Next to Zest is Plant Bistro, another favorite.  If you huff and puff up a steep hill, walk through a stone circle, and up a spiral flight of stairs, there is a glass display of vegan pastries well worth the trek: tiramisu classico, mango passion tart, pistachio macarons, Sicilian cannolis and panna cotta cappuccinos. After we order our pastries, we nibble at each other's deserts and debate who has the most delumptious sweet. But really the best part of our culinary ventures is being sprawled out on bamboo settees and spending time with each other – be it salty, sometimes sour, but mostly sweet.