Tulip | Restaurant and Lounge Bali

Tulip | Restaurant and Lounge

The culinary spectrum of Bali is growing ever more diverse, particularly at the epicurean end of things, where French, Italian and Japanese cuisines are well represented by a select group of high-end eateries. Flying the flag for serious Turkish cuisine, Petitenget’s Tulip restaurant and lounge joins the island’s elite list of restaurants that provide quality service, tasteful décor, and above all amazingly good food created by passionate people.

If you’re after a greasy doner, you’ve come to the wrong place. Tulip serves up the freshest and finest authentic Turkish food this side of Istanbul for lunch and dinner, with a vast array of meze tasters sitting alongside both vegetarian and carnivorous mains – not to mention devilish desserts and an impressive wine list.

Once past the ample car parking area in front (don’tcha just hate having to park on the street around Seminyak?), the restaurant opens out on to a breezy garden area with two large lilly ponds either side of a raised walkway to the back. A large bar runs down the right side, with classically elegant wooden chairs and tables scattered throughout. Being so far back from the road, the overall ambience is pleasingly chilled out, with the muted sounds of classic jazz spilling lazily out of the speakers.

Currently playing host to family from home, I decide to bring along the rabble to help me out with things. Lucky I did to, as the meze tray selection of no less than 17 different Turkish style tapas certainly plays well to a crowd. Prepared fresh everyday, the meze selections are available individually for between 25-30k+, or as a package with a selection of 5(120k+), 7(170k+), 9(220k+), 11(250k+) or all 17(350k+). Every single one looks suitably tempting, but we manage to exercise a bit of restraint and pick out the hummous, haydari, circassain chicken, kopoglu and muammara, along with a bowl of freshly baked ciabatta and Turkish puff bread. To round off the starters, we order up a couple of Turkish pizzas, namely the kasarli and sucuku pide, and lahmacun (30k+), which I’m reliably informed was around long before the Italians started smearing tomatoes onto flat bits of bread…

I could quite easily graze on this kind of food all day, but it’s time for the mains, which come in the form of the steamed barramundi (90k+), and the Tulip signature dish of kuzu guvec (140k+). Although the tender white barramundi is nothing less than mouthwatering, it’s the seven hours slow cooked lamb and vegetables of the signature dish that is the clear crowd pleaser. A Mediterranean salad (40k+) rounds off the mains. Despite being just three months in town, Tulip has already made a name for itself with its dessert list, and so without too much persuasion, I’m convinced that we should put this reputation to the test, and before long we’re crossing dessert spoons over a plate of profiteroles (45k+) and the latticed sugar of the spectacular sutlac (35k+).

With a lounge areas complete with sofas and shishas on the way and late night snacks available on Saturdays, the future looks assured for this new addition to Petitenget’s fine dining scene.

Dan Ashcroft

Source: bali-indonesia.com