Turns out the efforts to gather funds together to aid those fighting fires and those who have lost everything in them isn’t contained to just Australia; mates across the ditch in Bali are also getting well and truly behind those who need it most, with one bar in particular taking a little page out of the classic Bunnings playbook to raise some much-needed funds.
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The Botanica bar and restaurant in Seminyak has pulled together a bit of a bootleg Bunnings sausage sizzle as part of a fundraising effort for the Red Cross Fire Relief Fund.
The Australian ownership and management of the bar revealed the Bunnings sizzle early yesterday, with the event running throughout this current weekend.
The entire setup is extremely faithful to your standard Bunnings fry up, in the sense that it’s a grill with snags sizzling away on it, which are served to you in a slab of bread with your choice of condiments, and a cold delicious beverage on the side. Only in this case that cold beverage is less “Kirks Lemonade” and more “frosty stubbie of Bintang,” which frankly whips ass.
Social media posts from the sizzle have laid bare just how good the whole setup is. Honestly, wrap your damn eyes around this heavenly combination.
You’d jump on a Jetstar flight right bloody now just to get stuck into that. Glorious gear.
Speaking with PEDESTRIAN.TV in Bali, Brenton Leigh Banner, the executive chef and general manager of Botanica, stated that the stand – which pulled in somewhere in the vicinity of AUD$800 yesterday alone – has attracted interest not just from expats, but from tourists as well.
Banner stated that while there were a lot of expats stopping by, there were a lot of tourists who “maybe have been here for a week or so – when the fires were really kicking off – and so they’re a long way from home, and they don’t know how to help, they’re away from their family.”
Banner, who has been living in Bali working at Botanica for the past 18 months, said “people come up [to us] and say ‘my friends and family had to evacuate, we can’t talk to them much, we know they’re safe, but we don’t know how to give them money, so here’s $10 to put towards your cause.’”
The entire project came together in around 6 hours on Friday afternoon, which included Banner’s butcher rushing to produce 30kg of sausages, and looks to continue beyond the weekend until stock runs out.
As for whether or not he expects to run into any legal trouble from using the Bunnings logo, Banner laughed and said “There’s not too many copyright laws here in Indonesia, it doesn’t matter too much.”
If you happen to be floating by Seminyak over the next day or so, Botanica is slinging out a snag for 25K (AUD$2.58), a frosty Bintang for 35K (AUD$3.61), and a combo of both for 50K (AUD$5.16). There’s also a donation jar on the counter for all your spare change.
Mates helping mates, across seas and across states. You absolutely love to see it.
