Bali Village

I visited this restaurant a couple of times. The second time was mostly to see if they were having an off day the first time. The first time, we dined inside, for lunch, and the restaurant appeared nice, It looked clean, and we were seated promptly. The server brought us some “fried wonton chips” with dipping sauce, and a pot of hot tea with little cups. It was a nice surprise. We ordered, and the food came out pretty quickly, and the food was hot. We ordered three different meals, but they all looked sort of similar... they all had a brownish colored sauce, and a lot of it. The smell of “Chinese 5 spice powder” was really prominent. It’s a great flavor, but needs to be used very sparingly since it can be overpowering. The taste, in my opinion, was overloaded with hoisin sauce and 5 spice powder. All of our different meals lacked complexity of flavor and basically tasted sweet. The second time, I ordered a chow mein lunch combo with an egg roll and white rice. I requested the white rice, because the fried rice I had during the first visit wasn’t a flavor that I enjoyed. I wouldn’t say that it was bad, I just didn’t care for it. The white rice was perfect. Besides the white rice, another good part of this was the egg roll, which was crispy and hot, and not re-fried like I’ve had in some other take out places. One thing about the egg roll, was the neon pink meat inside it... kinda weird. The flavor combination of the egg roll and white rice was my favorite part. The chow mein itself was a different story. I had high hopes in my mind as I was ordering it. I imagined a similar visual look and flavor of the chow mein that I’d ordered from other Chinese restaurants. It was a little disappointing when it wasn’t. Again, brownish/olive green color and an overpowering sweetness to the taste. Overall, I liked the restaurant inside. The hot tea and the fried “wonton chips” were a nice touch. The service was friendly and attentive. The food was served hot, but, the flavor profile of all the entrees we ordered was too sweet. The flavor lacked complexity and the texture was all soft and saucy. Honestly, the food wasn’t visually appealing. Probably not going back, except for white rice and egg rolls.