Denpasar, In the City

Vegetable and Fruit Carving at Inna Grand Bali Beach

On the fringes of Sanur Beach, 6 km east of Denpasar city occurs several tourism facilities like hotels, restaurants, golf courses, water recreation, travel agents and much more. First hotel established after the independence of Indonesia was the Hotel Bali Beach, but now has been renamed to The Inna Grand Bali Beach Resort & Spa. Some 30 meters north of the hotel sits the Le Mayeur Museum, an exquisite heritage of a Belgian painter.

The hotel was inaugurated in 1966 has 600 rooms. To kill the spare time of its guests, Inna Grand Bali Beach regularly presents Balinese dances. It is performed every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Dances performed are like the Legong, Ramayana Ballet, Jegog Gamelan orchestra and sometimes Cak Dance.
Aside from the entertainment mentioned above, there is another attractive art excitement on offer namely vegetable and fruit carving. Originally, this activity was merely a ‘show’ that was carried out in front of the guests who are enjoying breakfast at Coffee Shop. Four to five carving artists perform this show on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 08:00 to 09:30. “While having breakfast, our guests watch us carving the vegetable and fruit. Meanwhile, on lunch and dinner time those carvings are displayed as decoration that frequently draw the attention of guest,” said Nyoman Tedun, an Executive Chef to Bali Travel News.
Added, the show then becomes an attractive point for visitors. This uniqueness is rarely found in their country. Accordingly, they are given an opportunity to learn and join the vegetable and fruit carving activity. On every show, his party consistently provides knife and ingredients (vegetable and fruit) for visitor who would like to try out. “On one occasion, there were guests who stayed at other hotels coming to see the demo of fruit carving and at the same time, to learn about it,” he stated proudly.
According to Tedun, as a matter of fact, this activity is especially important for a staff of food service. Because, a cook is expected to be able not only to blend various proper ingredients into food, but also to know the art of setting up the table. “One of them is to carve this vegetable and fruit,” he uttered.
Carving vegetable and fruit for Tedun is one of the efforts to discover the Balinese culture. Activity that has been taken place since 1980s never makes tourists bored even though they have come over ten times. Probably, this show is the first of its kind performed at hotels in Bali. “We also frequently train the staff of food service of other hotels. Even, there were some of his ex-students who were accepted to work abroad just by having a knife as his only capital,” he added.
Other than fruit and vegetable, the hotel as well holds a demo of making sculpture of ice blocks. This demo is often carried out when the hotel host important and state guests. Carving the ice block to make a sculpture takes him 20 minutes. Style of the sculptures varies, like animals, flowers, humans or others. Sometimes, it is made based on the ambience of particular occasion. For instance, on Christmas season or New Year, the figure adopted is the Santa Claus along with his angels. Or carving the name of newly-wed when being used on a wedding ceremony.
His party once made an exceptional sculpture of an ice block that took the shape of Eiffel Tower of Paris (France) or other outstanding buildings in the country where the guests are from. “All are made based on photographs. By doing so, they will be proud to see such sculpture works,” said Tedun who is a frequent award-winner of fruit and vegetable carving competitions abroad. Nowadays, he still receives orders to teach carving outside Bali or even overseas. (BTN/015)