The Bali Express food trailer with savory specialities from the blissful Indonesian island is racking up awards, and making itself more available, with a rotation of where it’s located, trying to get the word out on the uniqueness of its offerings.
These efforts include nearly daily social media videos by the always enthusiastic Peach state Georgia native Barry Williams, whatever the weather in these occasionally much colder climes.
Awards it proudly posts on its truck include the Community Votes 2024 Platinum Winner for Specialty Foods, and 2024 Gold Winner for Asian Restaurants.
The 46-year-old said he quit his job working for specialty welding companies after deciding his partner’s food was too good not to be sold to the public.
“She started making food for me at my job, and I fell in love with the flavor within a week. And I'm like, wow. You are an extremely good cook,” Williams said to us about his locally based partner Koming Suryani, a Bali native, in the United States for 20 years.
She started making food in the U.S. for a circle of friends, including Indonesian lawyers and doctors.
“She told me she's been cooking for her whole life. Her mom taught her how to cook at six years old,” he said.
At first he says, Suryani, who goes by @balinese_usa on Instagram started a meal prep business.
“She cooks 260 meals in one day with no measuring spoon, and I couldn't really figure out how she did that, but she did. And it's just gotten bigger from there. We did meal prep, and then after that came beef jerky, and she was doing nine flavors of beef jerky. And it just got so massive within two years. I made the decision in my own mind to quit my career and kinda see what would happen if I started this business,” Williams said.
With her cooking and his energy, their team is full of ambition.
“Our food trailer is getting popular by word of mouth and we couldn’t be more grateful how our journey is going,” he wrote on the Bali Express Facebook where there’s a Revi order link with Indonesian staples such as the main savory rice dish Nasi Goreng, Rendang, which is slow cooked coconut beef with spicy egg and veggies, or Mie Goreng, which is fried noodles with veggies and eggs. There’s also vegan options available.
The Revi page also indicates the truck’s location and hours. Orders can be made before swinging by.
“I’ll set up a a weekly schedule every Sunday of where we're gonna be at,” he explained.
He’s gotten five county licenses but he says the food truck is mostly based in northern Nevada, where he now lives.
“We do want to try to get some more people to try the food, but that's been the hard part for me is trying to get people to actually know what this is. This is world class food,” he guaranteed.
For those not used to the level of spiciness Indonesians themselves can’t live without, Williams says his partner “knows how to dumb down the spice to where it's just spicy for flavor.”
She also makes a red hot sambal, the key ingredient in many traditional Indonesian dishes, which can be added to desired levels.
He’s put a QR code on his trailer for people to vote for Bali Express in the current 2025 Official Community’s Choice Awards contest run by the RGJ.
“You have to take on major risks to get major rewards,” he says of his business venture. “And I know without a doubt, without a shadow of a doubt, like, within a year or two, she's gonna be major. I'm trying to figure out how to put her in a restaurant setting, because there is nothing like her. She's just bringing flavor that no one can touch,” he concluded.
Our Town Reno reporting, February 2025