This is my 8th article from the cycle, dedicated  to Bali Island and the third on the theme for The Experience Economy, a theory developedby Joseph Pine and James Gilmore. In my previous posts Is The Customer Always Right? and What is Experience Economy and where can you find best examples in Bulgaria? I have touched some aspects of it and given examples of places in Bulgaria where customers would gladly pay higher prices because they get an experience that charges them positively, enriches emotionally and intellectually. I explained what time well saved [1] and time well spent[2] are.

Now I want to tell you about a very impressive example of a fine customer experience “staging”, with main “director”, the owner of restaurants Bumbu Bali, and the villas Rumah Bali at Nusa Dua, Bali– Chef Heinz von Holzen.

If you are a guest of the holiday village or the restaurant, you will definitely see a brochure that invites you to take a class in cooking traditional Balinese cuisine. The first impressive thing about the description is that you’re going to have to get up at 6:00 am to visit the Jimbaran vegetables market and the fish market to buy the products. My curiosity was definitely provoked. I imagined this would be a real exotic experience. Some would be afraid of the early wake-up-hour, imagining a vacation on Bali spent mainly beside the pool or on the beach. It’s okay if you’re this type of person, there’s an option for you to join the class at 9:00 am straight for the cooking part. 😊

So, my morning on the day of the course started at 5:30 am, when my whole family was sleeping and didn’t heard how I got out in the dark to go to the reception. It turned out that from our hotel I was the only enthusiastic early bird. This gave me the wonderful opportunity to chat more with the amazing Chef Heinz while he was skillfully driving the van (right hand drive) to gather the other students from the other hotels. Swiss by birth, adventurer at heart, an exceptional Chef with a great career in five star hotels like Ritz Carlton, Grand Hyatt and Hilton. This remarkable man speaks with so much love about Bali, which has become his main home for many years, about its nature, people, local customs and of course Balinese cuisine. His restaurants offer traditional local specialties, but about them you can read more in my article Hear, See, Smell, Taste, Feel the spirit of Bali in restaurant Bumbu Bali, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia.

Rocker, motorcyclist, hiker, photographer, benefactor, the list is very long, and I certainly haven’t been able to figure out a lot of things about Chef Holzen, although we’ve talked a lot.

Before we dive into the market ruckus, in one of the quiet market alleys, on a stall, representing something like a local office of Chef Heinz von Holzen, he treated our compact and colourful company with coffee and traditional rice cakes. He told us about the habits of the local people. Explained how Mama Bali, a collective concept by which he calls all the family women from Bali, takes care of the kids and the home. How she buys early mornings on the market from notebooks and pens to breakfast for the kids for school. Mama Bali cooks every day with fresh products acquired from nature in the same or mostly day before. Refrigerator she does not use. If she has one at home, it is usually used as simple cupboard without cooling. Balinese diet is mainly vegetarian, plus eggs, chicken and seafood products, influenced by the island main religion Hinduism. Because of the many foreigners who have moved to live there, you can find also beef and pork.

No matter that the streets of Nusa Dua were still quiet early in the morning, when we went to the market, we were already late, there was still a noisy crowd of buyers there.

The Jimbaran market was full of fruits, vegetables, spices, cut meat (cut straight there on spot, as you can see in the movie), household appliances, electronics. It was colourful, busy and full of smiling people!

For people accustomed to shop in supermarkets only, it could be a slight shock experience, because here no one worries about hygiene.

Then we visited the fish market that didn’t smell like fish, and there wasn’t enough variety.

Interestingly, the Balinese are not fishermen. Fishing is carried out by men from Java and Sumatra.

I was shocked by the information that years ago fishing around the island dried up. Very unfortunate but a fact! As a result, if anything is caught, it is bought quickly and does suffice the demand by all restaurants. Chef Heinz von Holzen has agents in all markets to prowl for good commodities, because in his restaurants are offered only quality and fresh products. If you come across a Bali island restaurant with a wide variety of fish, most of them have arrived from other islands. The same goes for shrimps, mussels, lobsters. Whether they traveled in good conditions and whether they are properly stored, is also not guaranteed. I’ve seen restaurants that keep the fish in water, rather than in ice. Very unreliable from hygienic point of view.

We did not purchase products by ourselves on the markets, but simply took visual, auditory and olfactory information. In fact, all the products were bought by Chef Holzen’s agents, while he was telling us about the island, the cuisine, the local habits drawing our attention to interesting details.

Because I have more to tell, I’m going to stop here and. I will continue in my next post. Follow the sequel…. 😊

If you’re curious, and you want to stay in the villas owned by Chef Heinz von Holzen- Rumah Bali, book straight here, while keeping all your genius promotions and benefits. I do it all the time.

Booking.com

If you want to learn more about Rumah Bali  and about other interesting places that  placescases.com visited on  Bali  for your convenience I put here the links to the reviews.

1. Hear, See, Smell, Taste, Feel the spirit of Bali in restaurant Bumbu Bali, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia
2. Is the Balinese massage a ritual or therapy?
3. Do you want to go to Bali Island with the whole family in comfortable villas with private pool? I know a place like this!
4. Go To Locavore To Go, Ubud, Bali
5. Tasty Meal In The Dining Corner, Kayumanis, Bali, Indonesia
6. Stay In Jungle Paradise Ubud Raya Resort, Bali, Indonesia
7. What Is Kopi Luwak?

[1] A term from the book “The Experience Economy” by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, updated edition, Harvard Business Review Press Boston, Massachusetts

[2] A term from the book “The Experience Economy” by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, updated edition, Harvard Business Review Press Boston, Massachusetts

How to get there?

Check-up for promotions of Qatar Airways with the QR code below. This is how we booked our tickets at very affordable prices.

Once on the island, to get to Bumbu Bali 1, Bumbu Bali 2 and Rumah Bali, Nusa Dua, use the placescases.com and Google Maps Guide by hitting the red pins on the map and then clicking Directions:

For more reviews about restaurants, hotels, and other places in Sofia, Bulgaria and the world, check out all categories of placescases.com