Ibu Oki, Ibu Anik, and how businesses stays in business

Yesterday we had a lunch at Nasi Ayam Ibu Oki in Uluwatu, Southern Bali. For those of you not quite familiar, Nasi Ayam is a local Balinese dish consisted of rice and chicken cooked in various types; betutu style, fried, as satay, and as satay lilit to say the least. Accompanied by the hot and refreshing sambal matah, it's a dish that will hold respect and love in the heart of hot food lovers.

It was my 3rd exposure to the same meal at ibu Oki, and I can say pleasingly that they had maintained the quality quite well over time. Well it's not surprising since they have been around for years, but I'm just glad that there are eateries who keep their consistency of quality thus live up to their legendary statuses.

This is due especially since our pick of nasi pedas, Bu Anik, which we usually held in high respect and we promote as better than bu Andika, has failed miserably last time we tried them, which was the night before our visit to Ibu Oki, hence the memory is still clear.

Though they now has (again) improve their business with providing permanent eating place renting the whole store they usually use only the front yard at nights, the food quality is badly amateurish:

1. The crispy chicken skin fries, which was the highlight of their place is now drenched in oil and has no more melting in your mouth consistency level, simply awful, you can go to Carrefour to have a much much better version of skin fries there
2. The crunchy salted fish, who was also a strong suite of the place, is now tasted dull and has zinc-plate consistency, hence eating it is like chewing a piece of thin metal and when you do able to bite them, they cracked with sharp points that pinches your mouth, it's almost like that they don't cook it
3. The shredded chicken is now as tough and rubbery as toughest and rubberiest chicken we ever tasted
4. The standard "campur" package now costs 15K instead of the regular 10K, but we didn't see any major difference nor both the chicken floss and the winter melon curry in our dishes
5. Hygiene related: I noticed one of the waiters (man) is carrying around a bowl (that I really hope is not filled with any food), coughing into it on the way to the back of the building, and continue smoking afterward

As I understand that glitches in both service and quality happens, in this case I think that Nasi Ayam Ibu Anik had degraded its level significantly that creates the "we wonder if we were eating at the same place" kind of confusion.

Discussing with peer diners, we're thinking that there are only two possible explanations for why this is happening:

1. The original cook resigned, they downgrade their quality to cut cost due to the increase in chilli pepper price, while at the same time increase their price to raise money for space rent (bad combo)
2. The brand has been hijacked 

Neither options, we'll stop recommending Nasi Pedas Ibu Anik until further notice, and would apply the status "eayor" or "Eat at your own risk". (byms)