Maria is a sweet lovely Javanese lady who performs her cooking classes from her home which is around the corner from the Kuta wet markets. Her home consist of a 3x3 room. In it, it is has a small table, fridge, a small buffet , some shelving and her fold up foam bed in the corner. There's an adjoining wet area which has a squat toilet and wash basin which is on the right as you enter her home (room), as there is no kitchen, Maria uses a wash tub on the floor of the wet area to clean things and wash up. She keeps her home spotless and clean.
As there was five of us Maria allowed us to choose extra dishes (six) for our 150kRp each, she even rode to Jimbyran Bay on her bike to get us some prawns as I had requested Udang Bakar Madu( Grilled Prawns with Honey) which wasn't even on the Menu, I wouldn't of asked if I knew, as I said she is a lovely lady.
I think 6 dishes was way to many for the facilities available and the day started to drag, The cooking is done on kerosene burners on the floor and the day we did the cooking class it rained so the cooking had to be done in the entrance of her room with the fumes filling up the place.
The ingredients for the paste are laid out on individual mortar's so you can photo graph each dish, but apart from grinding the pastes for the respective dishes we watched Maria try to make best of what she had to work with no more than two of us assisting due to the lack of space.........Maria is looking to move to a bigger place!
The food was delicious, especially the Beef Semur and Rendang, we ate four of the six dishes and left the grilled fish and Prawns for Maria as the grilling was left until last due to the lack of space and rain and the crew had had enough.
I have on previous trip done the Bumbu Bali cooking class and absolutely loved it and raved about it. That was more than just a cooking class , it was a cultural experience, but it was also $$$$ more. I wasn't expecting the same with Maria but as I had organised it I felt responsible for the others experience.
So if you would like to do a cooking class that doesn't take all day and is close to Kuta, then I would recommend for a Maria's but only two to three persons at any one time and no more the three dishes.
Cheers hope this helps