[dropcap size=big]I[/dropcap]f you’ve ever unwrapped a gift, you know the familiar pangs of excitement that go along with each pull of the wrapping from tamales, or bungkus, Balinese-style rice wrapped in banana leaves. If you’re Balinese and living in Los Angeles, it feels familiar because though you’ve searched high and low for a proper bungkus, you’ve probably come up empty-handed.
At Bungkus Bagus, Celene and Tara Carraras, two Bali and L.A.-raised sisters are serving this staple dish and other tropical Indonesian foods in Glendale, out of the driveway of their teenage home.
“Bungkus literally means wrap or package,” says Celene, who moved to Bali when she was three months old and first started eating it around the age of two. Found commonly in most corner stores in Bali, bungkus can be hard to come by in Los Angeles. “L.A. has some good Indonesian restaurants, but I’ve never seen anything with Bali-specific food,” she says.
It’s a dish that means the world to a lot of people, and the reaction from Balinese immigrants has been more significant than the Carraras' could ever have imagined. “My friend’s dad even started crying,” Tara admits. “He said it tastes like his old life.”