Sri Lanka Food - Delicious!

I cant get by without talking about Food, that is, the lovely spicy, aromatic Sri Lanka cuisine!

During the 1st part of our trip in central Sri Lanka, we did a village tour which include lunch and we were all treated a buffet of yummy, rustic home-made curry chicken, fried river fish, dhal curry, papadoms, deepfried eggplant,coconut mixed with chilli and tamarind,  all served in claypots. We dived in, including my children - the elder son loves spicy food, eating off the plate lined with banana leaf and our hands! The only word to describe - as a Singaporean is SHIOK! Checkout the pictures.

The refreshing and juicy coconut drink @ 50 cents per coconut

Papadoms, fried fish, curry chicken, chilli coconut pulp, dhal curry,friedn eggeplant

The children happily tucking in

Sri Lanka cuisine is similar to Indian but it has less coconut milk and has many spices added to it, including their very (own) Cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, fennel, cloves, etc.

I also want to make a special mention of Tea in Sri Lanka, previously known as Celyon Tea and share some of my knowledge on the tea leaves and how to brew a aromatic cuppa!

•  Orange Pekoe is the full tea leaf and after 3 minutes of brewing in a 98 degree C, it best drunk with a touch of honey. For a tea lover, the aroma is intoxicating.

•  Broken Orange Pekoe also commonly known as English Breakfast is make up of broken Orange Pekoe tea leaves. It is slightly stronger, again best drunk with honey and/or milk after the same brewing time of 3-5 minutes.

•  Of course, there is the Broken Orange Pekoe Fanning, a strongest version of the broken orange Pekoe, best drunk in the afternoon with milk after 5 minutes of brewing.

Since our trip, we have been enjoying freshly brewed tea. No Lipton and Dilmah tea bags, sorry, for as long as my tea leaves can last!

Oh, I must mention about their fried noodles/rice. As two of our children in the group does not enjoy spicy food, we had no choice but to order stirred fried noodles and rice. AND to our pleasant surprise, the fried noodles and rice turned out very tasty, sometimes with a touch of curry leaves and coconut oil scent but it has what we called WOK HEI - heat of the wok! And the fried rice has salted fish added to it like some of our zi char style So, for families worried about the food for their children, there is a non-spicy option. Oh, just a quick note to share that the noodles are rice noodles - bee hoon/vermicelli.

I must would also like to share that at the South, seafood is abundant and inexpensive. The range includes jumbo (really huge)river prawns - size of about 20cm, lobster, red snapper,travelly - think they call it butter fish - tender and juicy, tuna, sea crabs and mud crab. Mud crab are largely exported and with some help, we managed to get 3..fried with chilli.

Jumbo River prawn - how huge it is against my elder son

Our feast at the beach - red snapper, lobster were the highlights

Chilli mud crab and jumbo prawns

Just to give you a feel on the price - one lobster is about S$30; while 1 kg of jumbo prawns (7-8 pieces) cost about S$40.It was a haven for all of us! 

For food lovers especially seafood lovers,you will be "belly happy" at Sri Lanka South!