Exploring Timor-Leste

Where to eat and drink in Timor-Leste

• Jonty • Episode 23

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Jonty:

Bondi. Welcome to exploring Tim Este, the podcast that talks about Southeast Asia's best kept travel secret. I'm your host Jte, and I'll share firsthand insights, expert interviews and practical travel tips. Whether you're a traveler, a cultural lover, or just curious about places rarely covered in the mainstream. You're in the right place. Let's explore two more. Less day.

today's episode is about food and drink in Timor-Leste. I'll start with a bit of an introduction and then I'll go into more detail around where you can eat and drink in Dilly is that has by far the most options in Timor-Leste. And then I'll talk about some of my favorite places to be outside of dli. Timor essay isn't world famous for its cuisine, although its coffee is, but you can definitely eat well here and portion sizes tend to be generous as you'd imagine in Southeast Asia. Rice is a staple, but there are also some interesting Portuguese influences and fusion restaurants, a typical meal for Diurese will consist of rice and a variety of vegetables possibly with fish or chicken. Beef and pork are generally reserved for celebrations'cause the animals are of considerable value. Corn is a major part of the diet and it's eaten in a variety of dishes. Most food follows Indonesian influence and dishes such as Nazi Garrin or Merin are readily available. Dili offers plenty of choices in terms of restaurants and cuisines. Prices can range from$2 to$20. For a meal, and there are cafes which are open all day and restaurants and bars, which are open until late at night. Now, obviously take the usual precautions that you would when eating in a developing country by sticking wherever possible to cook foods. Salads are generally fine in high end establishments, but there are no guarantees. And in terms of tap water, that's not drinkable in Timor, so stick with bottled water throughout your visit or bring a good water filter and purification tablets. In terms of drinks, beer is universally available though it's usually only the local beer, a Bing tongue or maybe Heineken, and there's generally a range of soft drinks and fruit drinks available. Note that fruit drinks are usually loaded with additional sugar unless you ask for no sugar European and Australian wines are easy to get hold of, but expensive and the range is limited. Soft drinks, bottled water and can. Beer are sold at markets, shops, and by street vendors. The true Timur drink is coffee and as cafe in Deton, and they prefer it strong and black, and it's usually herd hot and sweet with plenty of sugar. Espresso coffees are available in many of the Western style cafes. In the larger towns there are a range of snack barrows called ONGs, which is an Indonesian term. We can get a selection of rice cooked in palm leaf parcels, barbecue chicken, fish, or corn from between two to four US dollars. And our local favorite pastime is to sit and eat on the beach watching the sunset. So if you visit exploring timor less day.com there is a section under plan called Food and Drink. And on that I've got a couple of maps, which I'll refer to in this podcast, which if you want more information on these places is the best place to go. I have a diagram with six areas around Dili where most of the restaurants and cafes are based. And further down there is a Google Map, which has places to eat and drink across Timor-Leste. I'd also highly recommend a website called Dilly Guide, which was set up by an expat, and that has probably the best information about where to eat and drink in Dilly and other places in Timor, but primarily dilly huge range of restaurants and cafes and bars with descriptions about each of those. So that's the place I'd really recommend to go to for a deep dive. starting with in Dili those six areas. They go from the west through to the east. Starting with the Timor Plaza area. And Timor Plaza is the only shopping center in Timor-Leste that is a place to get reliably decent air conditioning. It's quite a break from the heat and craziness. It's definitely not a. Malaysian or Indonesian style large mall. It is pretty small in comparison with those, but it does offer a bit of a respite from some of the craziness of Dili. So just to highlight some of the places. And this is not completely comprehensive. There are many more places on the website that you can look out for other options to eat. These are just some of the ones that I've particularly enjoyed. But this will give you highlights of some of the places that I enjoyed whilst I was living in Dilly for a year. So back to the Timor Plaza area. There's the Agora Food Studio, which is outside of the main mall. You walk to the back of the car park area by one of the accommodation blocks, and that offers quite authentic Timor's Fusion food. It's well regarded and it's a very kind of pleasant place to eat. Lina Corner is a section of the uh, Lina Supermarket and that has a quite good load of cafe. Bistro kind of area where you can get food from the counter or they can get food on ordering. The top floor of Timor Plaza has the Panorama restaurant, which I never ate at, I had drinks at, but that has good views across the city. Finally the Timor Plaza Food Court is a pretty reasonable Asian style food court with Timorese and Indonesian outlets primarily. So there's quite a few things to do around Timor Plaza heading east from Timor Plaza to along by the waterfront. You have the car Tu area, and a few places here include Castaways. That is an expat haunt. It's a kind of Australian Western star. It's very popular with expats, looking for an Aussie bar, with nice waterfront views there is one of two Haha cafes. So the original Haha cafe is there, and the other one, haha, cafe Blue is in Farrell. Those are some of my favorite places to go to particularly, they do amazing smoothies. I really recommend those. And then they both do food, but haha, cafe Blue, the one in Farel probably has a better menu selection to choose from. This is also where letter Faja Specialty Coffee roaster is based. And that's one of the best known places to get coffee in TIMOs through Letter Faja and that have a good cafe there. And there's also Naris number one Korean restaurant. And there is a surprisingly large Korean contingent in dli. And that's regarded as one of the best places to get authentic Korean food in Timor-Leste. So heading east of the Farra area, this is where the Mottiel church is quite a prominent landmark on the waterfront and the Dilly Lighthouse and it's home to a number of embassies in the area and there's some good places to eat. Highly recommend is Uma Val, which is very much a Tim's kind of focused food. I really like the Taha Minha, which is Indonesian Bangladeshi food. Punks is a bit of a institution as a nightclub bar, and there's also a few other cafes in the area, including the Haha, cafe Blue I mentioned before. Moving slightly further to the East in Coal Mirror. This is really the heart of old Dilly. Probably the best known place here is Delicious Timor. So a bit of a pun on Delicious. That's just across the road from the Port and that is an excellent place for local fusion food. Very popular. Close by is Hotel Timor, which has good air conditioning, has a much more international feel. You can escape some of the noise and heat of dili in there. Close by is the Patel Complex. This is a Portuguese supermarket, but it also has a very good cafe attached, which is the best place to get Portuguese tarts. And they've got a nice outside seating area and in that complex of small shops and areas, there's also the Everest Coffee House, which is the best known Nepalese placed eat in Dili. Slightly further west of that is Laier and there's quite a few places to eat here. The Great Wall is highly recommended for those looking for Chinese food anyway, looking for ice cream, I would highly regard mehi. That is the best ice cream that I've found in Timor-Leste. It's three US dollars for two scoops, and they vary the flavors quite a lot and they're often based on locally available fruits, so mangoes and pineapples and passion fruits. Yeah, it's a really delicious place to eat ice cream. New lilies is a very popular spot with Tim, particularly at lunchtime. And it's pretty affordable. And TCI is one of the best known Portuguese restaurants in Dili and finally to the far East. So this is heading out towards Christo Ray. There are a number of places to eat along by the waterfront. Some of the best known ones are Beachside and Casbar, both of which you can sit on the beach, have a coconut. Enjoy the view and eat some good food. The menu is more international, Indonesian style. They're very popular with visitors and expats. I particularly like little patio, which is probably one of the best Thai places in Dili and has a nice setting on the waterfront I've only mentioned maybe a third of the places that you can eat there, so there's more options available. Now heading out of your options get a lot fewer in number. But these are some of the places that I've particularly enjoyed on my travels around. I'll start from the west of the country and Head East. Start with babbo. Fort Hotel does very good food and it's a beautiful setting up in the mountains, looking out with fantastic views towards the coast and just a very relaxing place to spend some time and have a good meal. Another good spot in Bobo is the D two Uma Cafe, which is in aba. So if you drive to Babbo, this is on the way from Dili it offers good food, good drinks, and the setting is quite beautiful right by extensive rice fields. So really recommend having a stop there if you are traveling through. If you're heading into, there's Almar Dmar Resort and Lahuta Beach Escape, and they both offer very good places to eat and drink in a beach side setting. In am mirror there's Gecko Cafe, which is in ko, which is just as you cross the border into Amira and they have some quite nice food if you're heading up towards ale into the mountains. Projector is a good place for lunch, but as I mentioned earlier, you should call ahead to make sure that they're expecting you in Moisi. The Sarah Guest House has pretty good food and a very well located restaurant area on the top floor with great views. Looking out across the mountains of Moi area. Heading East outta Dili, just past the large military base is the corner store network, and that's a really nice place to stop at. It's quite funky made out of shipping containers. And then further on at$1 Beach there's a branch of the popular Dilly establishment. Delicious. Just opposite$1 Beach, which is a great place to stop. In Tutu Cafe. Bo Alley is a popular place to stop'cause it has amazing views of the landscape. Doesn't really have much food, but it's a good place to stop for a drink. In Beauo, as you'd expect from the second city. There are a few more options. My favorite is actually slightly out of Auo, so halfway between Central Beauo and Waterbury Beach. You go past the dad, Terra Agro ecological farm. This is a beautiful setting in the bush. It's very much organic, homegrown food. They have a lot of the food that they serve. There, you'll see being grown nearby really relaxing place to stay. And then in BAU itself, there's a couple of restaurants, restaurant Amelia and Restaurant Victoria which are on the main road, which are pretty good places to eat. And then the Prasada Dubal also has quite a upmarket restaurant. And then final spot just heading out to Far East into loud term catty guest house in com has a good reputation, so if that's given you a bit of a feel for some of the places you can eat and drink in Timor less day.

Jonty:

Thank you so much for listening to exploring Timor Less Day. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a rating or review. It really helps more people discover the show. If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at exploring Timor lessDay@gmail.com. Until next time, or Bodo ADEs.