Table "matters"

Our mission this time was to go through endless options and carefully choose the glassware where we will be serving our beverage and the weapons you will be given to attack our food. 

The idea for the glassware is for it to be above all functional, but also to “dress” every drink, especially each of our cocktails. We left the house armed with our beverage menu and we started to look for the glasses that would best match the character and look of each cocktail. We put our favorite options on a table and once done we got their prices and took the selected glasses with us as samples to be tested at home with their respective cocktails. We went to a few shops to do the same and thus be able to compare brands and prices. It is funny because as soon as we favored one of the makes, the shop manager told us that that supplier was not reliable at all as it took ages to get the stock, if ever. We are facing similar scenarios every other day so we are doing our best to cope with this uncertainty by rolling with it and like MacGyver overcome problems with creative solutions… 

Then it was time to look for cutlery. We prefer a very simple, clean design. Something understated that feels great in your hand, easily grabs our food and goes well with the minimalistic design of Cuca. We have pre-selected a few options and we would love to know your opinion. Will let you know soon how to help us to choose!

TAPAS • COCKTAILS • DESSERTS: Why?

You will have already noticed from the tagline in our logo what our focus will be at Cuca. From the beginning we agreed on the importance of “concept clarity” and after endless discussions and loving arguments pondering our options, we decided on the three items we both love the most: tapas, cocktails and desserts.

TAPAS: sharing experiences

We want Cuca to be a place to share a great dining experience. As Charlotte Brontë wrote, “Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.”  This is precisely what we believe, that food is tastier when we share it with those we love. 

On the other hand, our menu is going to be so delicious that we cannot be as cruel as to make you choose…  Tapas provide you the opportunity to try several dishes at very affordable prices and without having to limit your choice to a single main course. Beyond our lunch or dinner, Cuca always welcomes you to graze on a tapa or two…

COCKTAILS:  blended concoctions 

We want to make drinks as thoughtful and unique as our food and cocktails offer us huge room for creativity. 

Our cocktails will be bold, exciting, refreshing, playful. Flavor and balance will reign over anything else. As a form of cuisine in their own, we are developing our signature beverage in line with our style of food and coherent with Cuca philosophy.

We want the artful blending of flavors in our cocktails to contribute to Cuca’s memorable and emotional experience.

DESSERTS: sweet cravings

At Cuca we are determined to celebrate life, food and good company. And what kind of celebration is one without dessert?  Our desserts will be mildly sweet, rather light but still heavily delicious. A well-crafted range of flavors to be enjoyed at any time and for any excuse whatsoever. 

Without wanting to reveal too much, trust me when I tell you that our selection of new sweet classics will definitely give you one more guilty reason to come back for more. 

Tapas, Cocktails and Desserts: three categories developed with the only purpose to ensure you feel spoiled. 

Bali Baby

Let me open the door for you to the wonderful, unusual, fascinating world of the babies of Bali... 

In Bali a child is believed to be a reincarnation of his deceased ancestors and is thus looked upon as a god. Offerings are made during pregnancy to ensure the upcoming god’s well-being and after birth the placenta and the umbilical cord (representing the child’s spirit guardian brothers) are buried in the family compound. 

The smaller the child, the holier he is and the closer to heaven. Babies are not considered to be “human” until they are 210 days old at which time a ceremony is performed, along with the necessary offerings. Until then they are called Idewa (”god”). 

Balinese believe that anything below (including the ocean) carries negative connotations and is an evil matter. This conviction cause them not to permit children to crawl on all fours, and before a child is three months old he may not even touch the earth and is carried everywhere. 

Once babies turn 210 days old, they are named individually. The full name of every Balinese not only indicates his caste but also his sequence of birth in a family. That is to say, the first four children to be born are called Wayan, Nyoman, Made and Ketut.  After all these names are used up, the rotation starts all over again. Believe you me this was such a revelation for us… we finally solved the mystery of keeping on meeting “Wayans” and “Nyomans”… 

To make matters worse, the parents’ names change after the birth of each child. They instantly become called “Father or Mother of X”. Astonishingly, in Bali people are identified by their descendants rather than by their ancestors to reflect that time flows from the present to the future rather than from the past to the present. 

A child is never beaten as it is believed it will damage his tender soul or drive his soul from his body. He is not considered responsible for his actions because as they say “his mind is still undeveloped” and it is the god within him that acts through his body. At home there is no regular discipline and no pampering; the parents do not intimidate their child bur rather coax him into obedience as an equal. Nothing is hidden from children, they listen attentively to adult conversations and they know facts about which an adolescent in the West is totally ignorant. In line with this custom, babies are fed the Balinese peppery food as soon as they are weaned and will not touch food without spices. 

From the time the child can walk, he is left to himself and falls in the care of other children. Small girls know how to take care of babies with the same proficiency as their mothers and it is common to see babies carried on the hips of girls only slightly older. The sight of child crying is extremely rare. He learns early to be self-sufficient and is free to wander all over the village and to do as he pleases. Frequently the father more demonstrative than the mother and it is common to see a man with his child in his arms, taking him everywhere and talking to him as if he were a grown-up. A boy assists his father in the work at home and in the fields and cares for the cattle. Little girls learn from their mothers to cook, weave, thresh rice and make offerings. 

The independence and lack of pampering may explain the well-mannered seriousness and the self-sufficiency of these kids but if you are intrigued about the astonishingly well-behaved nature of Balinese children, I strongly recommend you to read The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff.  This researcher visited Bali in 1992 and compared her findings from the Yequana people (in Venezuela) with the Balinese customs. 

Source: I learned so much partly thanks to Island of Bali, by Miguel Covarrubias, a highly recommended work that depicts in depth Balinese customs and traditions.