As usual, we’ve been doing ourselves proud in the eating department. The food of Sri Lanka, in our opinion, deserves to be better-known than it is. Here are our four favourites, plus a few beverages to wash them all down.
Rice and Curry
This is the national food of Sri Lanka, with rice always coming first. It’s just what it sounds like, rice served with a huge variety of curries. Our favourite is probably the lentil (dal). Like many of the foods we love, it’s fairly simple but capable of wild variations.
Rice and curry usually comes with papadums, and nearly always with a variety of chutneys. Our two favourites are seeni sambol (onion-based, not terribly spicy), and pol sambol (coconut, chilis, shallots, and salt).
Seafood, especially Crab
Sri Lanka is an island, so naturally seafood plays an important role here. We have enjoyed many a fish curry, and also the (less-traditional) things like a rainbow bowl topped with grilled prawns, which we enjoyed at least once a week at our local coffee shop, The Grind.
But the real star here is the crab! They serve it most fancily – and most pricily – at the Ministry of Crab located in the Old Dutch Hospital, complete with bibs (like the one below).
But you can also get it for a smaller pricetag, especially if you are willing to do all the work yourself. Here’s an excellent crab curry we enjoyed on the east coast.
Short Eats
This classic street food is more or less anything you can eat with your hands. But it’s usually stuffed or fried or both. Varieties range from samosa-like to empanada-like, and include egg rolls, breaded and fried mincemeats, and European-style puff pastries stuffed with vegetables and meat. We have eaten dozens of these and we love them all. Our two favourites, probably, are a veggie samosa and a smoked chicken pie.
Rotti and Kottu Rotti
Rotti, aka roti, is the flatbread common to this part of the world. It’s often served for breakfast with any one of a variety of curries.
Kottu Rotti is a bit like fried rice or noodles, but it’s made from chopped rotti. And, somehow, it is magically delicious! Do not confuse this with the noodle-based dishes (such as the one below) which are also yummy, but do not receive nearly the same kind of love from Sri Lankans.
Drinks
Aside from tea, which we’ve drunk gallons of (it is Ceylon, after all!), there are a huge number of classic drinks to go with the food of Sri Lanka. Like Lion beer (which has the typical light Asian flavour), or ginger beer (we’ve had a bunch of different ones, all good), or arrack (a coconut-based whiskey).
There are a lot of of coffee shops in Colombo, from the cavernous Commons Coffee House with its huge menu, to the small and artisanal. We have found that even the usual drinks come with a fun twist, like the lump of coconut rock (aka pol toffee) that comes with your morning coffee at Commons, or the green-tea matcha with condensed milk and raspberry syrup from The Grind.
The Grind also does an excellent cappuccino, with the prettiest designs we’ve seen in ages.
So there you have it, a quick dip into the fabulous food and drink of Sri Lanka! We hope you enjoy looking at the pictures as much as we loved eating the real thing!
PS – in case you are worried – we did eat a few vegetables in our time here, like these splendid green beans which we’ve been trying to recreate for a month. Our very favourite restaurant in town, Monsoon, serves them with extra chili. We think they’re cooked in coconut oil, with a whole bunch of spices added…
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