A melting pot of Indian, Southeast Asian, and Arabic flavors in addition to colonial influences, Sri Lankan cooking is a feast for the senses, drawing on extremely contemporary herbs and spices and the bounty of the land and sea.
Consuming out in Sri Lanka is a delight, whether or not you tuck into genuine rice and curry at a roadside cafe, dive right into a plate of kottu (chopped roti flatbread with greens and meat) at a downtown hole-in-the-wall or pattern surf-fresh seafood at a sleek oceanfront restaurant.
Munch down the place the locals eat to get pleasure from Sri Lankan meals at its most fiery and full-flavored. Listed below are one of the best issues to eat and drink in Sri Lanka.
Munch on Sri Lankan hoppers
Made with a fermented batter of rice flour and coconut milk, hoppers – often known as appa or appam – are bowl-shaped pancakes with crispy edges and fluffy facilities. Plain hoppers normally include the chili and salt condiment lunu miris. Observe up with a savory egg hopper – cooks crack open an egg right into a plain hopper and tip it off the skillet completely cooked. Hoppers additionally include candy milk or jaggery (palm sugar) and coconut milk, making fairly the dessert.
The place to attempt it: Go to roadside hopper stalls for a cheap Sri Lankan meal. For a connoisseur expertise, reserve a desk on the fine-dining Palmyrah Restaurant within the Renuka Metropolis Lodge.
Devour string hoppers with curry
Don’t let the title idiot you – idi appa or idiyappam (string hoppers) are completely completely different from peculiar hoppers. Typically served for breakfast, these steamed rice flour noodles are hand-pressed into skinny, delicate mats. No idi appa meal is full with no aspect of pol sambol (grated coconut pounded with chili) and a creamy dal curry, cooked in thick coconut milk, scented and flavored with cinnamon and curry leaves.
The place to attempt it: Culture Colombo has a tasting basket that comes with hoppers, string hoppers, condiments and curry dishes. It is an ideal method for first-timers to get a style of Sri Lankan breakfast and dinner gadgets.
Feast on rice and curry everytime you get the possibility
This on a regular basis staple is an umbrella time period for a broad household of advanced, intricately-spiced vegetable (and infrequently meat and fish) dishes, served with rice – a bit like an Indian thali. A meal may include half a dozen curries, with at the very least one primarily based on meat, poultry, fish, seafood or egg, and one constituted of dal (lentils). On the aspect, pickles, chutneys and pol sambol add additional warmth. There’s additionally mallung, a leafy salad made with inexperienced leaves, chopped inexperienced chili, onions, and grated coconut.
Most Lankan curries are primarily based on coconut milk, with a mix of spices – together with however not restricted to chili, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom, coriander, lemongrass, rampe (pandanus leaves), curry leaves, mustard, and tamarind.
Dried Maldive fish – cured, dried tuna, produced within the Maldives – can also be often used as a seasoning. Hen is frequent, together with mutton, loads of beef dishes, spicy pork curries cooked with black pepper and ample vegetable dishes.
As you journey across the nation, you’ll typically have event to drag over at a neighborhood restaurant for a rice and curry feast. A few of the greatest locations are easy family-owned eating places by the roadside, providing a day by day choice of meat, fish, and veg dishes (generally with as many as 10 selections). It is a vastly extra thrilling introduction to Sri Lankan delicacies than consuming at a vacationer restaurant the place the spices are toned down.
Many eating places solely serve rice and curry at lunchtime. Guesthouses will typically put together it for dinner however you may must order it earlier within the day to offer cooks time to work their magic.
The place to attempt it: Laid again, standard and with large flavors, the rice and curry from Mettha’s Dwelling Cooked Meals Conventional Sri Lanka Restaurant in Unawatuna tastes gratifyingly much like the meals ready in Sri Lankan properties. In any other case, head to the Galaxy Lounge in Arugam Bay the place the rice and curry is so good that the Sri Lankan cricket staff got here again for seconds.
Sit down for a plate of kotthu
A spicy mishmash of leftover flatbread, contemporary greens, egg and meat, kotthu is the island’s dinnertime favourite. This carb-heavy, standard hangover remedy comes with a rhythmic soundtrack because the components are chopped on a sizzling metallic griddle with two metallic blades.
This tough-to-miss metal-on-metal sound retains the streets alive at evening. Hear intently and you will discover that kotthu cooks all have their very own, distinctive rhythm as they chop the components. Hen and pork kotthu are standard, however seafood variations with fish, crabs or prawns are straightforward to search out in coastal areas.
The place to attempt it: For locals, Lodge De Pilawoos in Colombo is an all-time favourite. If you end up upcountry, seize a plate of kottu from Themparadu in Nuwara Eliya. Add cheese in the event you like your kotthu oily, and end off with a glass of chocolate-flavored iced Milo.
Snack on isso vadai at Galle Face Inexperienced
Crispy, crunchy and barely spicy, isso vadai is a fixture of Galle Face Inexperienced in Colombo, with a dozen or so distributors dotted round this open inexperienced within the metropolis heart. These deep-fried lentil-and-prawn fritters are the proper snack to munch as you watch the sundown and take heed to the hubbub of this bustling metropolis. Right here, it’s served with onion chutney in contrast to elsewhere within the nation.
The place to attempt it: Galle Face Inexperienced is the prime spot to attempt isso vadai, however you may as well seize some from the distributors you’ll meet on trains or buses throughout the nation. You’ll additionally discover parippu vadai, made with out prawns.
Begin your day with pol roti
Toasted and generally barely charred, pol roti is a Sri Lankan flatbread made with flour and grated coconut. This breakfast or dinner merchandise typically comes with a aspect of lunu miris (a condiment constituted of chili and salt) and a spice-laden rooster curry.
Be aware that pol roti is completely different from the flour-only ‘roti’ typically served at tourist-oriented eating places and seashore shacks throughout the nation; make sure to cease by a neighborhood family-run place for the actual deal.
The place to attempt it: For a pol roti meal in Colombo, drop in on the ever-popular Culture Colombo. Not far-off is The Cauldron, an enthralling cafe that dishes up kotthu made with pol roti.
Go for a lamprais brunch on Sunday
Meticulously wrapped and baked in banana leaves, lamprais has its roots within the Burgher group in Sri Lanka, a minority ethnic group of blended Sri Lankan and Dutch descent. This slow-cooked Sri Lankan packed lunch incorporates an attractive amalgam of components.
Contained in the banana-leaf wrapper, you may normally discover rice, a blended meat curry (which can embody rooster, pork, beef or mutton), frikkadels (spicy meatballs), blachang (a dried prawn paste spiced with pepper and garlic), seeni sambol (a caramelized sweet-spicy onion relish) and brinjal pahi (pickled eggplant). Some Burgher kitchens additionally embody an ash plantain curry.
Don’t simply order the primary lamprais you see, because it might be removed from its genuine greatest – search it out at cafes specializing in the dish.
The place to attempt it: Because the variety of Burghers has dwindled, it has turn into more and more tough to search out good lamprais, however Rodrigo’s in Colombo does a satisfying lamprais lunch. They promote out quick so be sure to order forward. One other great spot on Sunday is the VOC Cafe run by the Dutch Burgher Union in Colombo; settle down with a bottle of home made ginger beer.
Get messy with Sri Lanka’s lagoon crabs
Fats and meaty, Sri Lanka’s lagoon crabs are sometimes despatched for export, however a couple of eating places and residential kitchens in Colombo promote this island specialty. Jaffna crab curry, made with a northern Sri Lankan spice combine and freshly caught mud crabs, packs a punch and is greatest loved with a plate of white rice.
The place to attempt it: Because the title suggests, Ministry of Crab in Colombo focuses on crabs, together with jumbo-sized shellfish which are laborious to search out elsewhere. Cease by Colombo’s The Fat Crab for a extra pocket-friendly expertise, or order in from Crab Tales, a supply kitchen serving homecooked crab curry primarily based on a standard household recipe from Batticaloa within the island’s east.
Tuck into Sri Lankan kiribath
Kiribath is the island’s celebratory dish, that means individuals prepare dinner it on all particular days (assume New 12 months, weddings, the primary day of a job or faculty). Made with conventional Sri Lankan kekulu rice cooked in thick coconut milk, kiribath is cooled down on banana leaves or a flat griddle, compressed and reduce into diamond-shaped blocks earlier than serving.
At house, locals typically devour this specialty with a spoonful of lunu miris chili paste or katta sambol (a variation with onion and Maldive fish) – each are fiery, spicy accompaniments. End off any meal with a slice of kiribath with jaggery (palm sugar) or banana for the proper candy kick.
The place to attempt it: Many eating places now serve kiribath day-after-day of the week. Drop in for the breakfast buffet on the refurbished heritage lodge, Cinnamon Bentota Beach, for a feast of kiribath and spicy curries. Upali’s by Nawaloka in Colombo additionally has kiribath on their breakfast menu.
Sip some native toddy
Toddy is a frivolously alcoholic drink constituted of the sap of palm bushes. Contemporary toddy is good and has a pointy wine-like style. You will discover three varieties of toddy throughout the nation: one constituted of coconut palms, one constituted of kitul palms, and a 3rd constituted of palmyra palms. The latter is hottest in northern Sri Lanka, the place palmyra palms dominate the panorama.
Though toddy shacks are discovered all through the nation, they’re very a lot a male protect. Toddy is greatest loved contemporary off the tree with a aspect of boiled tapioca (the starch from cassava root) served with katta sambol.
The place to attempt it: For an immersive coconut toddy expertise, contact Ceylon Arrack for a tour of considered one of their estates in Naththandiya, north of Colombo. Not solely you’ll get to sip toddy, you’ll be able to watch expert tappers shimmy up the bushes to “faucet” the coconut flowers for sap.
Seize an arrack cocktail
Arrack is a fermented and (considerably) refined toddy. Coconut arrack – the preferred drink – is contemporary, clear, and coconutty, and much like a mix of rum and whisky. To make arrack, fermented toddy is distilled right into a liquor, then watered down and aged in wood vats. Native alcohol retailers known as ‘wine retailers’ will principally have cheaper blends of arrack however you will get a bottle of unblended coconut arrack at any grocery store.
The place to attempt it: A neighborhood favourite, the interesting ColomBar at Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo has an intensive record of arrack cocktails developed by native mixologists. Strive the Lantharauma, a ginger-and-tamarind-infused cocktail with coconut arrack served in a dangling lamp. Right here, you may as well drink arrack neat or sip on palmyra arrack cocktails which are in any other case laborious to search out.
Slurp some kola kanda
Inexperienced, thick and barely bitter, kola kanda is each Sri Lankan child’s nightmare as moms pour a glass of this drink each morning earlier than college. However ask a neighborhood and they’re going to let you know how they started to slowly adore it as they grew up. This breakfast-only, smoothie-like drink is made with inexperienced herbs, rice and coconut milk. It is best loved heat with a bit of jaggery.
The place to attempt it: You’ll come throughout kola Kanda carts on busy streets within the mornings. If you need a sit-down expertise, Upali’s by Nawaloka in Colombo is the place to go.
Vegetarians and vegans
It’d come as a shock, however Sri Lanka is a superb vacation spot for vegetarians and vegans in the event you keep on with vegetable-based curries cooked in coconut milk and vegetable kotthu. Vegans might have to clarify their necessities as many dishes comprise ghee (clarified butter), shrimp paste, dried fish or milk.
Most tourist-catered cafes and eating places now serve espresso with vegan-friendly options akin to soy, almond or coconut milk. Cease by Cafe Kumbuk in Colombo for vegetarian and vegan-friendly dishes made with a neighborhood twist; their jackfruit tacos are extraordinarily more-ish.
Retailers of the government-backed Hela Bojun chain, completely run by ladies, are scattered throughout the nation they usually serve nice, cheap native fare incorporating regional components, with many vegetable selections. Koha Surf Lounge in Unawatuna is nice for vegans whereas Life’s Good Kitchen in Colombo whips up fabulous vegetarian-friendly meals.
Meals value attempting
Scorching Butter Cuttlefish: Crunchy flour-coated cuttlefish tossed with butter, spring onions and chili; it makes an excellent snack, particularly with a glass of Sri Lankan Lion beer. Obtainable in each beachside restaurant.
Village buffalo curd: Sri Lanka’s go-to dessert, conventional village buffalo curd is available in clay pots and is historically topped with candy, earthy kithul palm treacle. Goodfolks in Colombo sells kithul palm treacle in bottles.
Lavariya: Rice noodle pockets full of a caramelized coconut filling that is delicately spiced with nutmeg and cardamom. This teatime snack is served heat with a glass of ginger-infused tea, and it is easy to search out in village eating places and retailers.
A yr in meals
You may by no means be in need of flavourful meals in Sri Lanka, however some dishes and experiences are seasonal, typically tied to the island’s cultural and non secular festivities.
January
Cease by a Hindu temple throughout Pongal (a Hindu harvest competition celebrated by Tamils) for a plate of candy pongal, a rice porridge made with raisins.
April
Sweetmeats and snacks akin to kevum (golden, deep-fried rice truffles), kokis (deep-fried turmeric-colored rice-coconut milk snacks) and dodol (coconut milk-based, pudding-like dessert made with jaggery) present up in each family throughout the Sinhala and Tamil New 12 months in mid-April.
April-Might and/or July (throughout Eid)
To rejoice Eid, Muslim households in Sri Lanka put together a coconut custard known as watalappan sweetened with jaggery and topped with cashews for additional crunch.
Might–June
On full moon days in Might and June – holidays which carry particular non secular significance for Buddhists within the nation – you’ll come throughout makeshift roadside stalls serving free meals, a convention referred to as dansel. The free treats could embody ice cream, contemporary juice, rice and curry, fried rice and boiled corn. Stalls typically have lengthy queues however visiting is an expertise. Pleasant locals could cease and invite you to their dansel, and refusing meals is taken into account rude — why would anybody say no to free meals?
December
Sri Lankans bake “love cake” for Christmas, a nutty semolina cake frivolously spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. You should definitely additionally sip some thambili wine, a sweet-fresh and warm-spicy drink made with fermented water from king coconuts, those with a brilliant orange husk.
