IBU SUSU Bar & Kitchen — Restaurant in Pulau Bali

Venturing out last night without a dinner booking we thought we would wing it and see where it takes us. We walked past a number of venues that didn’t do it for us but @ibususu looked like fun, a great vibe, open air, and food on peoples plates looked inviting. We got a seat and ordered a whisky to start (what no champagne this time?…)

Now we love Asian food, everything from Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, and the like, and we eat really spicy, like it will ‘burn you twice’ spicy, but we didn’t want anything too spicy on a hot night.

Anyhow, when we order at a restaurant we don’t usually go for starters then mains and put our order it at once. We sample as many starters as we can until we are full (order one or two at a time), that way we get to try many dishes. An ‘ad-hid degustation’ if you will. It also gives us the chance to leave if the first dish or two are not up to our standards, therefore we haven’t committed fully, and we can go somewhere else to eat.

As you can see we stayed, ordered some more whisky and had some great food. Flavours were fresh and fragrant, well presented plates, damn tasty, and we were pleasantly surprised that winging it paid off (many times it doesn’t).

The pork belly bao buns were amazing, fresh buns, tasty pork with the right amount of seasoning. The chicken and prawn dumplings were brilliant, mouth watering tasty and ‘juicy’. Peking duck pancakes were also very tasty with balance flavour and texture.

We then went for the papaya salad with spicy Thai dressing as we craved some heat, but unfortunately no heat, not spicy, and initially we were disappointed but the silver lining was we didn’t to sweat bullets as it was a warm evening. Nonetheless flavours were refreshing but the menu should remove the spicy description.

Finally we finished off with soft shell crab and green mango salad. Again a winner. We were also eyeing off the chicken skewers, drunken chicken and rendang beef but there was only so much we could fit in so we gave them a amiss, however the table next to us ordered them and we vicariously ate the dishes through them.

Overall the ambiance was great, place had a great vibe, and service as outstanding. Our only gripe was the lack of spice, in terms of heat, but I guess the chilli peppers took the night off 😀 hence the 4 start rating… but really...

If I was in Ubud for more than a couple days and there weren't so many other restaurants to try in here, I'd definitely be coming back to Ibu Susu because everything about this place was perfect. This is one of those meals I will dream about doe long after so I wanna go into some detail.

The service was really on point from start to finish. When we got there, we asked where to park our motorbike and the manager offered to park it for us which was much appreciated, and the rest of the staff were so friendly and attentive, checking on us throughout the meal, quickly clearing plates as we finished, and even though the restaurant was mostly full, everything still came out quite quickly.

We got the red snapper carpaccio and soft shell crab & green mango salad for starters, beef rendang and roast pork belly for mains, sides of rice and crispy smashed potatoes, and bitter chocolate brulee for dessert. Two of us split everything, and it was all delicious and so well done, but the red snapper carpaccio and pork belly were what really stood out, as well as the bitter chocolate brulee which was crazy good. I was worried that getting our two mains would be too heavy together but it was the case at all. Everything was fresh and clean. We got a couple cocktails as well which were all great, in particular the cucumber basil smash. You could really taste the different ingredients and the alcohol, which was nice as at a lot of places in SEA you can't taste the alcohol.

I really liked the vibe of the place too. It was very relaxed and laid-back, not pretentious even though it was serving some really nice, interesting dishes. Great atmosphere to relax and have a meal and drinks.

I strongly recommend this place to anyone who wants a break from local food but also wants some Asian food as they do some really interesting takes on classic dishes. Also, I'd definitely reserve a table ahead of time though, especially if you have a group bigger than 2, since we were there on a Thursday night during low season and it was still...

We decided on this place based on the numerous reviews raving about the incredible food. I was very frustrated at the end of the meal because I felt conned - how can a restaurant with a 4.6 rating be serving such bad food with such a high price point? The restaurant itself is very pretty and inviting, but that in no way helps the food go down better. We ordered the soft shell crab and mango salad, dim sum, barramundi fish, and the smashed roasted potatoes - my reference point for this selection was based on the reviews once again. Firstly, everything was lukewarm except for the potatoes, and everything, except for the potatoes, was honestly so painfully mediocre and one-dimensional tasting. The dim sum made me question myself and why I even bothered ordering it in Bali, it’s basically just dumplings wrapped so poorly that they fall apart once you pick them up and they come served in a pool of basically, soya sauce. I was so confused by the soft shell crab and mango salad, the dressing tasted like tomato sauce, and the soft shell crab had been mixed in and was soggy. The fish was cooked well, but was overly smoked and did not go well with the watery sauce that was just mostly salty and tasted of nothing. This is definitely the place to go in Ubud if you’re craving roasted potatoes and water, other than that it’s really not...