Bali, La Jolla (1995–1996)
I started at Bali in 1995, about a week before it opened. At the time I was still in culinary school took a job because I needed the money. I say “I,” but really it was we, there was a whole life happening alongside that decision, but that’s another story.
What I remember most from that first week is the feeling that something big might be happening. The place looked beautiful, almost finished, filled with intention. It wasn’t just another restaurant. It had a concept, a personality. Dutch‑Indonesian, centered around rijsttafel, something most people in San Diego hadn’t experienced or heard of before. The menu was already completed by a consultant, and it was incredible, layered, bold, full of flavor. You could tell there was real thought behind it.
It felt like an opportunity. Like the kind of place that could go somewhere.
Then opening day.
No soft opening or staggered seating to start, from the beginning, it was intense. Not just the normal opening chaos, I've done that before, this was something heavier. There wasn’t a real cushion for mistakes. Systems were still being figured out while we were already operating at full speed, and everything felt urgent, like there wasn’t enough time to catch up.
The kitchen took shape quickly because it had to. It became this tight, hot, constant space where everything depended on timing and movement. The food demanded precision, but the pace didn’t always allow for it for fresh and ill trained waitstaff, and that tension was always there, between what the food deserved and what the moment required.
The hours stretched almost immediately. I remember thinking at first that it was just temporary, just the opening phase, but it didn’t ease up. Sixty hours a week became normal. Seventy happened without question. Being on salary meant you stopped tracking it. You just showed up, stayed until it was done, and came back to do it again.
And while the work itself was demanding, it wasn’t the only weight in the house.
The owners were under pressure, real pressure. It was a make‑or‑break situation for them, and you could see it in everything they did. They argued a lot. Openly. It wasn’t something that stayed behind closed doors. It became part of the environment, something everyone worked inside of.
At the time, it was uncomfortable. Later, I understood it differently.
They weren’t bad people. I don’t think that now, and I don’t think I did even then, at least not fully. They had taken on something huge, and it was more than they expected. Money was on the line, the stakes were high, and they were trying to control something that didn’t want to be controlled that tightly.
But living inside that tension day after day takes something out of you.
As the pressure built, so did the micromanaging. Decisions got tighter, smaller, more scrutinized. Trust felt thinner. And at the same time, the kitchen had its own reality to deal with.
People didn’t stay.
There was a steady turnover. You could see it happening, people would come in, try to keep up, feel the pace, feel the pressure, and then they were gone. And every time someone left, the work didn’t disappear. It just shifted, got redistributed across whoever was still standing there.
A lot of that landed in the kitchen, on me.
Training new people who wouldn’t stay long enough to learn, covering gaps, trying to keep consistency when nothing underneath was stable, it became a cycle. You stop thinking about what your job description is and just start doing whatever needs to be done in the moment.
Somewhere in all of that, life outside the restaurant started to disappear.
I was never home. And even when I was, I wasn’t really present. The exhaustion followed me, and so did the stress. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it, but the job doesn’t turn off when you leave. It stays with you, physically, mentally, emotionally.
My relationship didn’t survive that, nope!
It didn’t collapse overnight. It just slowly wore down from absence. From not being there, from being too tired to connect, from the job taking up all the space that should have belonged to something else. There’s a point where you realize you’ve been gone, even when you thought you were still around, then they were gone.
And still, the hardest part wasn’t even the hours or the environment.
It was that the restaurant itself had so much potential.
The food was exceptional. I still believe that. The menu was one of a kind, the kind of thing that could have really set a place apart. The location was ideal. The concept was strong. You could see so clearly what it could have been.
I remember thinking that over and over: this should work.
And maybe that’s what made it harder, being inside something that had all the right pieces, but was struggling under the weight of how it was being run and what it demanded from everyone.
The realization that I couldn’t keep doing it didn’t come in a single moment. It built slowly.
It showed up in how my body felt all the time, how tired I was, how there was no recovery between days. It showed up mentally, too, in the constant stress, the lack of space to think about anything beyond the next shift, the next problem.
And eventually it became clear in a way I couldn’t ignore anymore:
I couldn’t live like that.
Not long term. Not in a way that was going to leave anything of me intact outside of work.
But that realization came with something else that was just as heavy.
I had spent years building toward that path.
Culinary school, all the hours in kitchens, everything I had invested in becoming good at it, it wasn’t casual. It meant something. And suddenly I was facing the possibility that the career I had worked so hard for wasn’t something I could continue in, at least not the way it was unfolding.
So when I left in 1996, it wasn’t just leaving a job, it was stepping away without knowing what came next. There was no clear plan after. Just a sense that I couldn’t stay and that I would have to figure something else out.
Looking back now, I don’t see it the same way I did then; I can see the whole picture more clearly.
The owners had a great idea and gave it a real shot. I think they probably were good people outside of the pressure they were under. The restaurant had real potential, and under different conditions, maybe with today’s tools like online reviews and exposure, it might have had a different trajectory. Or maybe not. That kind of pressure might have just played out in a different way.
And I can see something else too; a almost everyone I knew from that time in the kitchen world either left the industry or was worn down by it. Some are gone. Some changed paths completely. It’s a brutal life for most people in that environment, especially back then, before any real conversations about balance or sustainability.
At the time, it felt like a loss but now I understand it was also a turning point.
That year pushed me into making a decision I probably wouldn’t have made otherwise. It forced me to step back and rethink what I wanted my life to look like, not just what I had trained myself to do.
I didn’t leave because I failed, I left because I could see what staying would cost me. And that year, hard as it was, made that clear in a way nothing else could have!
Review: 7660 Fay Ave, La Jolla, CA, 92037
"Bali is a quaint and inviting restaurant nestled in the heart of La Jolla, CA, offering a unique dining experience inspired by the flavors of Indonesia. Specializing in authentic Indonesian cuisine, Bali provides a cozy atmosphere where guests can savor delicious dishes made with fresh, high-quality ingredients". -Eleanor Widmer
Eleanor Widmer reviewed Bali restaurant on Fay Avenue the circa 1995
Review (San Diego Magazine, February 1996): Bali for the Bodacious
IT IS THE RESTAURANT MANAGER’S FATE to encounter the occasional guest whose manners and behavior make Howard Stern seem a model of decorum and civility by comparison. But some diners engrave themselves in the memory for reasons uniquely amusing. A dozen years ago, I was seated adjacent to a young Dutch couple commencing a honeymoon in San Diego.
Like many Europeans, they were so taken by the reasonable price, high quality and generous portions typical of meat dishes in this country that they had ordered roast prime rib of beef. In due course, two handsome slabs of meat arrived, accompanied by immense baked potatoes that had been stuffed nearly to bursting with butter, sour cream and chives. In one instant, every cardiologist’s nightmare and many an American’s secret dream had been set before this couple, who looked utterly bemused, discussed the situation in Dutch for a moment and signaled for the manager.
The manager, smiling and solicitous, inquired how he might help them. The young man pointed to his potato and said, “What is it?” The manager, looking a bit nonplussed, responded, “It’s a potato.” I silently commended him for refraining from adding “you blockhead!” at the end of the sentence.
“I know it is a potato, but what have you done to it?”
“It’s a baked potato,” replied the manager cautiously, evidently fearing he had been asked a trick question.
“But potatoes always are boiled.” This was stated with a finality that made it clear that Americans, however technologically advanced they might be in other arenas, were woefully uninformed on the potato issue.
For the record, the couple declined the manager’s offer of replacement spuds and, after a few tentative tastes, seemed to enjoy the baked potatoes. In fact, they polished their plates. But if this anecdote suggests that the Dutch dote on solid but stodgy fare, bear in mind that they delight in the spicy exoticism of Indonesian cuisine.
Bali, a new restaurant in La Jolla, is not the first establishment to bring Indonesian fare—presented according to Dutch precepts—to San Diego County, although we have not had such an eatery in more than a decade. It’s not too surprising that the natives of a chilly North Sea country should have developed a fascination with the cuisine of a group of islands on the other side of the globe, since Holland held Indonesian territory at one time—the spice islands—under colonial rule for several centuries. And it was during that colonial period, when servants were employed by the dozen and lavish entertaining was the rule, that the Dutch developed the elaborate feast known as rijsttafel.
The word translates as “rice table” and implies a plate heaped with rice accompanied by a dazzling array of small dishes—meats, vegetables, relishes and sauces—presented all at once in an exercise as much theatrical as culinary.
At Bali, that theatrical element is very much in evidence. The softly lit dining room, filled to near capacity with carved wood figures, textiles and artifacts from Indonesia, provides a setting that feels worlds removed from Fay Avenue. One half expects, at any moment, the gamelan to begin chiming in the background.
The centerpiece of the menu is, appropriately enough, the rijsttafel. Offered in varying sizes depending on the ambition (and appetite) of the diner, it begins modestly, with soup and an assortment of appetizers—fried items, crisp condiments, and a selection of sambals whose heat ranges from playful to punishing. From there the procession continues with a seemingly endless arrival of dishes: curried meats, satays, stews rich with coconut milk, and vegetables prepared in ways that are at once unfamiliar and comforting.
The effect can be overwhelming at first encounter. Plates accumulate, flavors overlap, and comparisons are inevitable. Some dishes assert themselves immediately—the sweet soy glaze of babi kecap, for instance, or the earthy depth of a well‑executed curry—while others reward more deliberate attention. Not every offering attains equal distinction, but taken as a whole the feast is impressive both in scope and intent.
Those who prefer a more focused exploration will find a number of individual entrées, among them pansit goreng and a variety of grilled meats. Yet to forgo the rijsttafel would be to miss the point. This is a cuisine shaped by abundance and display, and Bali wisely leans into that tradition.
Service is attentive, if occasionally taxed by the complexity of the presentation. The staff does its best to guide the uninitiated through unfamiliar names and combinations, and diners would do well to accept the suggestions offered.
Prices reflect the ambition of the kitchen rather than the modesty of the address, but the experience justifies the expenditure—particularly when shared among several companions.
In the end, Bali succeeds less as a purist’s exercise in Indonesian cookery than as an evocation of a dining tradition filtered through history and geography. It is, in its way, exactly what the Dutch intended rijsttafel to be: a lavish introduction to an exotic cuisine. And in a coastal community where culinary adventure is often tempered by caution, that alone counts for something.
(Source: San Diego Magazine, February 1996)
