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Churros with chocolate sauce from Cookies & You.

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INTERIOR DESIGN EXHIBITION

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November - Almost DecemberWelcome to November, the month before Christmas. If Halloween was any indication, Christmas should be re-ally big this year, so enjoy the lull. Historically November is also the end of this rainy season, if you’re lucky.

This month we found a food truck (Bencita), a little known Japanese restaurant (Zen) and explored the local food scene in our locality.

We also launched yamu.tv - a place to watch videos. In addition to our own videos, we’re collecting cool Sri Lankan videos from all over. And a few international ones that we think are relevant. Do check it out, we promise there’ll be something new to watch every day.

indi

EDITORIALIndi Samarajiva

Vidya BalachanderBhagya Goonewardhane

Aisha NazimImaad Majeed

ADVERTISINGDinesh Hirdaramani

779 776 445 / [email protected]

CONTACT11 454 4230 (9 AM - 5 PM)

[email protected]

PRINTED BYImashi Printers

©2015 YAMU (Pvt) Ltd14/15A Duplication Road, Col 4

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NAIL ANATOMYNo. 14, Reid Avenue, Colombo 7(Inside Lakpahana Handicraft Centre)+94 112 688 358 www.nailanatomy.comfacebook.com/thenailanatomy

much more than nails

Just mention YAMU for Rs. 500 off a massage. *valid for the Month of November 2015 (Tues - Fri only)

BY AISHA Cookies & You bakes doughy cook-ies, brownies, pies, profiteroles and other baked goods to near perfec-tion. Many homebakers are good — great actually — but Cookies and You stands out.

Based on their Instagram feed, we narrowed down our choices and placed an order for a lemon pie, churros with chocolate sauce, Cara-mel and Nutella Sandwich Cook-ies, Cookie-dough Brownies (WUT WUT), and profiteroles filled with white-chocolate ganache.

We called Cookies & You around noon-ish, and the nice lady on the other side said she’d be able to have our rather large and sudden order ready by 1PM the next day. That’s pretty impressive, given that we’d not given her much notice.

When we went to pick the order up, I was surprised by there being two

lemon pies — but it turned out to be a single portion. A pretty pleasant surprise, that.

THE GOODIESWe were told that the churros (Rs. 500) had to be eaten fast, because it’s best served crisp and warm. We rushed back to office as fast as Du-plication Road traffic permitted us to, and took our pictures quickly.

The churros were light and fluffy, and hadn’t lost their crispiness either (hallelujah). Despite the choux pastry and generous sprinking of sugar, this wasn’t completely sweet and had a slight salty undertone to it. Though it was still fresh and crispy by the time we got to Yamu HQ, this probably wouldn’t work in most instances if the churros’ port of delivery is further away. This probably isn’t the best thing to have as a delivery item as it has to be served fresh off the stove, so to speak.

Drizzled with chocolate sauce, our day (and the churros) just became loads better.

We moved onto the cookie-dough brownies next, which is our equa-valent to heaven on earth. Even Mal Mal (who expressed his intense dis-like of brownies a mere two days ago) was sold.

This was deliciously moist, gooey, and chocolatey. The combo of cook-ie-and-brownie was carried out so perfectly here that you didn’t know where the cookie flavour began and the chocolatey brownie ended. They went hand in hand together like a wand to a wizard. Coming at a cost of 1,600, we think it’s quite worth it because of how good it is PLUS be-cause there’s around 12 rather large and chunky pieces of fudgy brown-ies to go through.

The huge burger look-alikes are the Caramel and Nutella Sandwich

COOKIES & YOU.73/A, Dharmapala Mawatha, Colombo 3 | 774 622 894

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Cookies. Slightly wider than your av-erage burger, this is a very generous sized cookie that’s moist and slightly fudgy. We love that it isn’t dry, and we also loved the salty caramel taste in the dough. This isn’t one of our fa-vourites and pales in comparision to the cookie-dough brownie, but is pretty good nonetheless. A batch of these (about three or four of them) is Rs. 540. Compared to the other cookie options you have around town, this is good value for money.

The white-chocolate ganache filled profiteroles came next. They were tiny little mouthfuls of yum. I don’t even like white chocolate, but really liked this.

Tiny and bite-sized, you could easily pop one into your mouth and have it melt within a matter of seconds. The filling was creamy and thick, and sur-prisingly not too sweet.

Coming with a price tag of Rs. 600,

you get about ten or twelve (can’t remember exactly how many there were in the batch, given that we kind of dug into it before we remembered to do a quick count) per order.

Last but not least is the lemon pie. This again, let’s have it out there, is a favourite of ours.

This packed a punch and was very strongly flavoured. Given the amount of sugary, diabetes inducing goodies we were stuffing ourselves on just minutes ago, this added a nice change in both flavour and texture. Constructed rather like a cheesecake but with a more liquid consistency, the upper part of the lemon pie was super creamy and thick, while the base was a very crumbly biscuit. A contrasting mix of textures, it made it slightly difficult to cut and serve out, but that’s also be-cause we didn’t have a spatula and the knife we were using is a weak substitute for one.

There’s a slice of lemon placed squarely on in the middle of it (you can see the outline of it) and it’s a legit, sour-as-heck, absolutely great garnish. Imaad used it to scoop up the pie with, and he said the extra lemon made the already lemony pie taste even lemonier. Two pies (one batch) is Rs. 1,700 btw.

CONCLUSIONCookies & You does a fantastic job, and is great value for money. As Bhagya so rightly pointed out, each item tastes just as it should — they don’t under-deliver. We couldn’t find fault with anything, and this is one of the very rare times we’ve had identi-cal opinions on what we’ve tasted. The total damage came up to Rs. 5,000 (4,940 bucks to be precise) and we all agreed that it’s totally worth it. It’s just the thing for small parties or a group of friends, and is sure to give everyone a food-coma.

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BY BHAGYAZen is Zylan boutique hotel’s hidden gem of a Japanese restaurant. They made a great first impression on our first visit, and this time around they’ve taken it a step further with their new bento boxes.

THE FOODSimilar to Cafe Japan, Zen has managed to fly under the radar, only known to a select few. That shouldn’t be the case since they do a darn good job of the cuisine. The menu at Zen has remained relatively unchanged over the past year with the exception of their newly introduced range of lunch bento boxes. Compared to its contemporaries, Zen is priced quite reasonably – the price per head came to under Rs. 2,000 in our case.

To start off, we got the nigiri

platter (Rs. 450) which comes with one each of tuna, salmon and ebi nigiri. Since most places generally charge around Rs. 200 per nigiri, this is a decent deal. Before even taking the first bite, we had a good feeling about our plate, going by the presentation, knifemanship and structure of the nigiri. The rice was cooked just right, so it held its form well. We got a hint of wasabi first, followed by the the fresh seafood that left no fishy aftertaste. Each element was fresh and came through beautifully.

We followed it up with the Philadelphia maki (Rs. 850) which is an uramaki or inside-out maki with avocado, cream cheese and salmon, topped with black sesame. The addition of cream cheese separates this one from usual makis, but it also

adds an element of personal preference. We were satisfied with the overall flavour, but felt that the combination of both avocado and cream cheese made it a tad too creamy. However, we can see others liking it for just that reason. Adding a bit of wasabi and soy helped cut through the creaminess, though, and we’d gladly have this again.

Around a week ago, Zen introduced a new range of bentos for lunch with a varied selection. They’ve got 12 options that cover all the essential meats and seafood, priced between Rs. 1,100 and Rs. 2,150. Since we had already tried the sushi separately, we went for the shogiyaki bento (Rs. 1,350 nett), which comes with shogiyaki pork or fried pork in ginger

ZEN115, Rosmead Place, Colombo 7| 112 686 883

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sauce, crumb-fried prawns, tuna and salmon sashimi, steamed rice and miso soup. Encased in a well-seasoned, thin yet crispy batter, the prawns were cooked just right. The sauce and mayo dip added a bit of sweetness and creaminess. When it came to the sashimi, they used an akami cut of tuna (one with very little fat), which tasted super fresh, along with a slightly fatty cut of salmon that added a nice contrast. Despite using thinner cuts of lean meat, the shogiyaki pork was not overcooked, and doused in a well-balanced sauce that wasn’t too heavy on ginger. This worked well with the steamed rice.

We had some leftover rice, and seeing as how we were still within our budget, we also got the teriyaki pork (Rs. 750). This

time, the pork had a bit more fat but we didn’t feel too guilty about what we’d had up until this point, so it was all good. While on the sweeter side, the teriyaki sauce was still appealing with a slightly thick consistency that made for a good glaze over the well-cooked, lightly caramelised pork.

AMBIENCE AND SERVICEZen is somewhat hidden away at The Zylan Luxury Hotel on Rosmead Place. Being a boutique hotel, the interior decor and overall look of the space is quite tasteful with polished cement floors, large paintings, a beautiful grand piano and a tiny, well-maintained bamboo garden. This is honestly a great place for a private meal considering the fact that it’s rarely ever crowded. Since we dropped in for lunch, we

sat on the ground floor but they’ve also got rooftop seating that is perfect for dinner.

The service was one area we weren’t too impressed with on our previous visit, but now the staff seems to be far more familiar with the menu and better trained in general. We were seated in one of two ocuppied tables at the time so the food arrived quite quickly. But Japanese food requires relatively little cooking time, so we don’t anticipate long delays even when the restaurant is more crowded.

CONCLUSIONDespite being quite underrated, Zen remains one of the better Japanese restaurants in Colombo. If you’re a fan of Japanese cuisine and you prefer a private meal in a peaceful setting, Zen is definitely worth a visit.

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Place Maximum Seating Capacity Price Phone

Indian Summer 25-85 people 0112662112

Upali's 30 people Rs. 15k minimum 0112695812

Flow 30 people Rs. 2,600/person (lunch)Rs. 2,900 (dinner)

0115 344 644

Cioconat 25 people Rs. 5,000 minimum 0112679292

Bayleaf 8, 15 or 20 (2 rooms) Rs. 20k minimum 0112695920

Han Gook Gwan 8-20 people 0112587961

Il Ponte 20 people 0112492492

Clique Supper Club 15 (dinner) - 35 (cocktails) 0767254783

Gallery 15-30 people Rs. 25k deposit 112582162

Nihonbashi Honten 2-20 people (8 rooms) 0112323847

Boulevard 15 people 0112055425

Mango Tree 15 people Rs. 7,500 for the room 0117620620

Manhattan Fish Market 15 people 0112301901

Siam House 15, 9 or 8 people (3 rooms) 0112595966

Tea Avenue 15 people (1 room)6 people (2 rooms)

Rs. 5,000 minimumRs. 4,000 minimum

0112669944

The Sizzle 12 people 0716888777

Paddington 12 to 15 Rs. 3,000 minimum 0112681888

Commons 10 to 15 Rs. 1,000 per person 0112681888

Mintage 10-15 people Rs. 20k minimum 0112680171

Royal Thai 14 people 0112491945

Tang Dynasty 12 people Rs. 10k minimum 0113288800

Coffee Bean 12 people Rs. 3,000 for 2 hours 0773928888

rare 6 or 12 people 40k or 60k minimum 0115673000

Sea Fish 10 people 10k minimum 0112326915

Maharaja Palace 8 people (4 rooms)12 people (1 room)

0114886000

Seoul 6-8 people (3 rooms)12 people (1 room)

0112697216

Cafe Francais 10 people Rs. 5,000 for the room 0114502602

Min Han 10 people (2 rooms) 0112576533

Ginza On The Edge 8 people (2 rooms) 0112863863

PrIvatE dININg rOOmSWhere can you host a private dinner in Colombo? We’ve been getting a lot of calls about this so we thought we’d make a list. This is not a comprehensive list. If we’ve missed anything, please let us know. We also didn’t include all the Chinese restaurants, you can assume that most of them have private rooms for up to 10 people.

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SUNDAY | NOVEMBER 29TH

TICKETS rs 1 ,500

SRI LANKA EXHIBTIION & CONVENTION CENTER

www.srilankadesignfestival.com/design-katha

Speakers

Paul Roeters & Jeroen Hoedjes Founding PartnersStudio KluifNetherlands

Jane Rapley OBEProfessor Emerita Ex Head of Central Saint MartinsUnited Kingdom

Daniel BeckerFounderDaniel Becker Design StudioGermany

Lee BazalgetteDirectorColombo Design StudioUnited Kingdom

Russel MirandaExecutive Creative DirectorGrant McCann Sri Lanka

BY IMAADFlower Drum, or Oak Ray Flower Drum as they’re now calling themselves, is a household name that brings to mind two things: Sri Lankan Chinese food, and chilli paste. Their new location is upstairs, just at the 5th Lane/Thurstan Road corner. They’ve also got a take-away location on Thurstan Road. I went there for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon in a post-lunch stupor.

AMBIANCEYou have to walk past a jewellery store and a shop selling Sri Lankan souveniers to get to the stairs and reach Flower Drum. If the place is ever full, there’s a few chairs just by the door where you can wait and have a look through the menu. Stepping in, the new layout is quite

refreshing, clean and classy. They’re got a lovely floral print going on with their furniture, spacious dining rooms, and a lot of daylight coming through.

As you walk in and take the left towards the reception, there’s this giant mirror with an elaborate frame that catches you off guard. You have about 10 steps to fix your hair before you enter the main dining area.

This is a great spot to host a group of eight, even, with the lovely rotating glass, or Lazy Susan, that works pretty well with the dark wood and the rest of the colour scheme.

FOODWe were a party of two and our meal kicked off on a good start with the stellar Sesame Prawn

Toast (Rs. 825). If anything, go for this! Ideal for when you’re on a few drinks and want to indulge in something deep fried, these bites are crunchy, juicy, and are served with prawn crackers!

The presentation doesn’t work very well with the star of the show obscured by a canopy of prawn crackers, but it really played to nostalgia of podi kalé going to the cinema. If you’ve had the prawn balls at other Chinese stops, this is quite similar but works way better. Hit this with some beers. They serve Lion Lager.

We work 9-5 though, so we had to go the juice route. I got my usual lime juice and my partner tried the pineapple. Watered down pineapple juice is not as great when you

FLOWEr drUm115, Rosmead Place, Colombo 7| 112 686 883

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take-away and dine-in from 6-11 PM.

Call 770335366

145 thimbirigasyaya (between fife and jawatte)

Giovanni’s

Colombo’s streetside pizzeria

want it chilled and it comes at room-temperature. Well, air conditioned room temperature. For one in the afternoon, I felt the air conditioning was a little too chilly. Lime juice, also watered down, was not quite sour enough to my liking, but, still tasted alright. At Rs 350 per juice, they’ve also got orange juice, mixed fruit and papaya.

We ordered a small portion of the Singapore-style noodles (Rs. 650) and it was enough to feed four people, easily. Honestly, though, there was nothing Singaporean about it. I felt like I was eating Harischandra noodles, very lightly seasoned, with a ratio of 80% noodle, 10% assorted meats and 10% vegetables. I asked the waiter to suggest their best noodles, and this was what he pushed

on the day. This noodle is almost identical to the one at The Station, who also push this option to their customers.

For sides, I went the nostalgic route and ordered beef with kankun. Growing up, Chinese food was synonymous with Chinese Dragon and the one dish that awed me was the kankun. Flower Drum does it alright. You get plenty of beef, well-seasoned, not grisly, but a little tough. The kan kun is only crunchy at the stems, and doesn’t taste super fresh, but I’m nit-picking. For Rs 770, it’s worthwhile sharing this with two people.

SERVICEThe staff at Flower Drum are very attentive, and seem to mostly know what they’re

doing. My waiter wasn’t too fluent in English, so I switched to Sinhala, and he only made a mistake with the order of drinks. Once this was brought to their notice, they brought the right drink with no hassle. They seem quite comfortable in their environment and that’s always reassuring.

CONCLUSIONFlower Drum has a good location and a great ambience, but the food has a lot of room for improvement. Given that their name is so well-known, it really feels like they need to up their game, already. The two of us ate for Rs 3000, and that’s a bit of an indulgence for a step-out-of-office-for-lunch level meal. Don’t go out of your way. Try the sesame prawn toast, though.

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tOm YUm at tOm YUm330, Galle Road, Colombo 04 | 112 594 458

BY VIDYAAs an introduction to the punchy, no-holds-barred flavours of Thai food, there are few dishes that compare to tom yum. A home-style classic that binds the signature herbs and spices of Thai cuisine together in a fiery broth, it is a vividly sensory experience. Intensely aromatic, deeply spicy and a riot of colours and textures, it is a deceptively simple soup with a surprising depth.

From the Thai words ‘tom’ which means a boiled broth and ‘yum’ or sour and spicy, tom yum is often referred to as the ‘national aroma’ of Thailand. Fresh herbs such as galangal (or Thai ginger), lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves form the foundation, bird’s eye chillies (and chilli paste) bring the heat, and seafood or meat add the heft. Laden with prawns, tom yum goong is the most popular iteration

of the dish, while tom yum gai includes chicken.

Far from a fussy, restaurant-style dish, tom yum is the very definition of Thai home cooking. As Thai food blogger Leela Punyaratabandhu says in this piece on Serious Eats, “In Thailand, while dishes like Pad Thai...are almost always left to the street food cooks, tom yum is rooted firmly in the home kitchen. It’s what a father who only cooks once a decade, can make blindfolded.”

Our search for a tom yum that ticks all the boxes led us to an unassuming restaurant by the same name in Bambalapitiya, which has been dishing out street-style Thai food since 2014. On our first visit, a couple months ago, Tom Yum’s rendition of its namesake dish left us breathless. Each mouthful of the soup, dressed with a slick of chilli oil,

hid a knockout punch. Scorching the Scoville scale while also delivering plenty of chew from the generously strewn squid and prawns, it was a sinus-clearing dish that sent our endorphins into a tizzy.

A family recipe handed down to Rom, who co-owns the restaurant along with her husband Divanka, Tom Yum’s version of the dish derives its gut-punch heat from tiny, local kochchi chillies. A shoo-in for hard-to-source bird’s eye chillies, they perform their role valiantly.

Here’s a hat tip: Don’t ask for the spice to be toned down, it defeats the purpose. Instead, order a full-bodied bowlful (Rs. xxx), which can easily satiate two to three diners, the next time you visit. And when the fire subsides, leave us a comment to tell us what you thought.

YAMU

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BY BHAGYA41 Sugar might be priced a bit higher than other contemporary bars in Colombo, but both its cocktails and food are honestly excellent. With a brilliant rooftop setting to boot, the only thing they really need to fix is the attitude of their staff.

THE DRINKSColombo actually boasts a pretty respectable repetoire of bars, but the issue we run into quite often is that the ones that excel at cocktails usually fall short in terms of food or vice versa. So the handful that manage to do justice to both make up our top tier — and that’s exactly where we’d rate 41 Sugar, along with the likes of ZaZa Bar, Cheers and Sugar Bistro.

In terms of variety, 41 Sugar

offers one of the best selections of wines anywhere in Colombo, with a glass coming to around Rs. 700. They’ve also got cockails covered with the usual array of international cocktails, in addition to their own range of signature cocktails, all priced between Rs. 450 and Rs. 1,200. We actually dropped in for their happy hour (5 PM–7 PM), during which they offer a one-for-one deal on a small selection of their signature cocktails.

Our passion fruit daiquiris (Rs. 600) were a terrific blend of sweet and sour from the passion fruit and intensity from the white rum.Another tiny detail we appreciated was that they kept the passion fruit seeds in there. The occassional crunch was a welcome addition.

While not as unanimously popular as the daiquiri, the caipirinha (Rs. 450) was still a worthy rendition of Brazil’s national cocktail.

While surprisingly pricey for a mocktail, their strawberry virgin mojito (Rs. 900) was also deliciously accurate in terms of flavour. It had that characteristic minty undertone but the dominant flavour was of strawberry, along with a mild tang from the muddled lime. On a warm Colombo evening, this really hit the spot.

The FoodWhile 41 Sugar is mostly known for its drinks, we definitely think that it also offers one of the best dining experiences in the Maitland Cresent area, which has no shortage of restaurants.

41 SUgarRooftop, 41 Maitland Crescent, Colombo 7 | 112 682 122

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As with the drinks, the food also falls into the upper bracket, so expect to pay upwards of Rs. 2,000 per head if you’re looking to get both food and cocktails. We were impressed with everything we tried, but the only caveat was that their portions weren’t particularly large. So if you’re here on a limited budget, we’d suggest skipping the starters and going straight for the mains.

Our crab cakes (Rs. 800) came to the table in no time at all. We got four, fun-sized crab cakes along with a mildly sweet tomato dipping sauce. At Rs. 200 a pop, these are definitely expensive. So whether it’s worth ordering the dish is up for debate. That being said, these little crab cakes were packed full of flavour and promptly disappeared in minutes.

The Sugar burger (Rs. 950), though not the same as the one they sell in their Sugar burger cart, was still one of the best burgers we had had in a very long time. This was a cheese burger, topped with a good amount of crispy bacon stuffed between two soft buns, served with tomato ketchup, pickled veggies and fries. This is easily one of the best burgers in the city.

Though we were quite full at

this point, we still went ahead and got their layered mutton rice (Rs. 1,300). At first glance, it may seem like a pretty small portion for the price, but there’s actually a respectable amount of rice in there. The mutton was tender, well seasoned and just a great match for the fragrant rice, which was the real highlight of the dish for me.

41 Sugar is also one of the few places in Colombo that actually serves up churros (Rs. 450). We got six pretty sizeable churros along with a berry dip and

chocolate sauce. Though quite large, the churros were crisp and not overly doughy, with a healthy dusting of sugar on top.

AMBIENCE & SERVICE41 Sugar offers a refreshing change from the usual indoor pub setting that is commonplace in Colombo. Unless you visit on a weekend evening, it also doesn’t get too crowded. The al fresco setting, combined with the soft lighting, actually makes it a great place for a dinner date. We’d recommend visiting around 6.30 PM so that you can experience

the sunset. In addition to their outdoor setup, they’ve also got a very snazzy lounge complete with black leather couches, a small stage to host a band as well as a massive yet tasteful chandelier.

We dropped in pretty early on a Wednesday evening so we had the entire place to ourselves, but we all felt that the service was sub-par and really detracted from an otherwise brilliant dining experience. The waiters seemed almost annoyed that we had arrived so early, even though we

were there during the designated happy hour. They promptly informed us that we wouldn’t be able to order tapas at the time since the kitchen would not open for another half an hour. The manager was also quite hostile about us taking photos, which baffled us

since this was a rooftop bar where people come for the view. A real shame, since this took away what would have otherwise been a perfect score.

CONCLUSION41 Sugar may not be an everyday drinking spot, but if you’re looking to head out for some good drinks and exceptional food, this place is one of your best bets. The service was the only area we had an issue with. If they can fix that, they’d be covered on all fronts.

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BY IMAADThis humble little restaurant is a serious contender in the rice-and-curry game, offering unlimited rice and sides for Rs. 110. As a bonus, they also offer quail, (yes, quail) for Rs. 260.

If you work around this part of Colombo, you need to try lunch here. It’s been around for 18 years and has been renovated this year, and is quite clean for a cheap rice-and-curry place. Its location in the middle of Pettah makes it less than accessible to most, but the food is great and the general mood quite pleasant. They’re open from the crack of dawn until midnight. THE FOODI tried the rice and curry (Rs

110) with the side dishes of the day, which included brinjal, carrot curry, parippu and pol sambol. The rice was well-cooked and you can serve up as much as you want. We’ll get to the sides later, that’s not what I threw myself halfway across Colombo for. Let’s get to the quail.

Bankshall Hotel is the only place we know of that serves quail. They call it ‘kaada’, pronounced ‘kaa-duh’, which they source from a farm. These are not wild birds, so you don’t have to worry about tough meat. If you’re super serious about your quail, you might find theirs to be overcooked, but I enjoyed the soft flesh and the cute little bird sitting in a tray of what looked like chicken

curry. It’s not too spicy, and also tastes a lot like chicken curry. If you want to be able tell yourself that you ate a whole bird for Rs. 260, then this is the bird for you.

Now the sides, I found the carrot curry to be sweet with its coconut milk base. The brinjal was not too oily, and packed quite a bit of heat, which made it quite enjoyable. Serious heat, mind you, for an otherwise unassuming vegetable. The parippu was the only let-down, being a little too watery for my liking. Oh, but the real winner was the pol sambol. Kunisso (dried shrimp) is a magical rice puller that, in my book, gives umbalakada (or Maldive fish) a run for its money. It also turned this otherwise not-so-spicy pol

HOtEL BaNKSHaLL57 Bankshall Street, Colombo 11 | 112 344 321

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sambol into a delicacy.

THE FALUDAI spotted kasa kasa (basil seeds) in a glass in the fridge, so I asked what it was doing there. On hindsight, this was a pretty silly question to ask, given that the place is run by Muslims from Kandy. The waiter suggested the faluda (Rs. 150) that is topped with kasa kasa. The faluda here is actually pretty good. They serve it with a thick layer of sherbet at the bottom, milk and ice cream, and, if you happen to ask silly questions, lots of basil seeds. The ice cream is mediocre, but once you stir up all the ingredients, the drink turns a crazy hot pink and delivers a potent sugar

rush. It tastes vaguely like rose essence, but who expects rose essence in faluda anymore?

AMBIENCE & SERVICEGiven the somewhat recent renovation, this place is pretty clean. The bright white lights add to the sense of hygiene that a lot of rice and curry stops tend to lack. It’s not the most spacious spot, so you don’t want to go with too much of a crowd. It’s best for a group of maybe four people. If you happen to be vanathafying around Pettah, have lunch here. It will really brighten up your day. The staff are fairly attentive once you get there, but make your order quick, because they’ll move on to the rest of the customers and

then you can’t really expect the same waiter to return to you. They’re pretty high-volume once it gets to lunch time, so hit this place around noon.

CONCLUSIONThis is one of the few places in Colombo that serves quail for lunch and dinner. That alone makes it quite special. The food is halal and the staff is fluent in Sinhala and Tamil. They also do biriyani and fried rice, but those don’t really compete very well with other eateries. It’s really the rice and curry that contributes to the charm. You can speak to the old man by the counter if you want to know the story of this establishment. He’s the friendliest of the lot.

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BY VIDYAAt YAMU, every time we see a menu of a new restaurant that proudly showcases ‘imported ingredients’, including foie gras from France, Norwegian salmon or king crab flown in from Alas-ka, we groan a little. Don’t get me wrong — our craze for crusta-ceans is well-documented, and who doesn’t love a rich slab of goose liver?

The trouble is, simply, that using ingredients that have been flown thousands of miles across the seas to lure customers is a tac-tic that is past its best-by date. Over the last decade, the global culinary landscape has under-

gone a slow yet definite change. Even as globalisation has made it easier—and inevitable—for us to buy Granny Smith apples from California, British cheeses and Italian extra virgin olive oil at the neighbourhood super-market, there is also a growing consciousness about the envi-ronmental and ethical costs of this luxury.

(The biggest burden of these choices has been borne by spe-cies such as yellowfin tuna and the Patagonian toothfish, bet-ter known as Chilean sea bass, both overfished to meet global demand. While the yellowfin tuna has been deemed threat-

ened by the World Wildlife Fund, the unflagging popularity of the Chilean sea bass has spawned a trade in illegal fishing, which the New York Times documented in this extraordinary series on pi-racy at sea.)

All over the world, but especially in countries such as Britain, the United States and most notably the Scandinavian states, there has been an upsurge of interest in the ‘locavore’ movement — a philosophy that champions lo-cally grown produce as well as eco-friendly storage and pack-ing. By turning the spotlight on indigenous produce that is unique to the ecosystem in

EATING LOCAL

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which it is cultivated, the loca-vore movement hopes to ad-dress the growing concern about ‘food miles’, or the distance that food travels between producer and consumer. It also implies the literal miles accumulated in shipping or flying ingredients from one corner of the world to another — and the resulting car-bon footprint.

Recognising that this is a cost we can no longer afford to ignore, most of the top restaurants in the world have turned their sights to what es-sentially grows in their backyard. Rene Redz-epi’s Noma, which held on to its number 1 spot for a number of years, and has been named “arguably the world’s most influential restau-rant at the moment” by the New York Times, is best known for promot-ing local and seasonal Nordic ingredients (in-cluding berries, greens and flowers gathered by Redzepi and his team, Scandinavian grains and local seafood). Similarly, Central in Lima, Peru, which has shot up to the very top of the 2015 list, serves Peruvian ingre-dients sourced from different al-titudes across the country.

To represent both sides of the debate, it is important to note that in order to stay true to the claim of authenticity, it becomes essential for restaurateurs and chefs to use imported produce. For instance, authentic Nea-

politan pizza demands the use of the strongest 00 flour and San Marzano tomatoes, both of which are often imported. Simi-larly, most of the restaurants serving mainland Chinese cui-sine across the city import pidan or preserved duck eggs from Hong Kong or China.

The inconsistent quality of the local produce is also a potential

roadblock. Andrew Speldewinde, who showcases Sri Lankan in-gredients and dishes in his cu-linary venture, Contemporary Ceylon, told me in an earlier in-terview that he finds the quality of locally available meat to be a particular challenge. “Every place just sells you beef cubes, which might just be off cuts mashed together,” he said, point-ing to the lack of importance shown to good cuts. However, it’s still a surprise when indig-

enous ingredients take pride of place, especially in a fine dining context.

Without doubt, there are ex-ceptions. Speldewinde’s multi-course home venture serves as an excellent showcase for indig-enous ingredients such as the tart, local naarang, converted into a jelly to accompany his prawn dish, and gotukola, which

is pureed to form the base of the tuna thel dala, among others.

Rare at Residence’s innovative range of ice creams, in com-binations such as seeni sambol and sprats, passionfruit and chilli and jaggery and sesame, all play on traditional flavour combinations and commonplace ingredi-ents. Havelock Place Bungalow’s compact ice cream selection (with offerings such as jaggery and honey-comb and coffee and arrack), also merits an honourable mention.

However, these are more the rar-ity than the norm in a restaurant landscape that seems domi-nated by ingredients from far-flung places, frozen or preserved to remain fresh during the long journey they take to get here. As global winds of change blow our way, we hope it won’t be too long before ingredients from this incredibly bio-diverse country find creative uses in restaurant kitchens.

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BY IMAADDutugemunu Street can get into quite a bottleneck during the post-work rush hour, and that’s exactly when Bencita On Wheels is open.

Operating out of a food truck, running on a generator, they serve waffles, both savoury and sweet. The same waffles are also served up as fajitas, tortillas and quesadillas.

For the Sri Lankan palate, they’ve got koththu, noodles, rice, and even roast paan sandwiches.

Located right opposite the Ber-nard’s Clothing store, you might just miss this spot while you curse away at the traffic jam ahead of you.

THE WAFFLESWe tried the Chicken Waffle Faji-tas (Rs. 350) which was made up of two waffles, sandwiched together and then sliced into four pieces. Quite filling for one person, we quite liked the some-what Thousand Island-ish sauce going on in the filling, with just enough fleshy chicken bits and tomato to make for a balanced bite.

The Sri Lankan style pol sambol and fried egg (Rs 250) sounded interesting. So, we tried it. This combination worked surpris-ingly well.

Bencita’s pol sambol is not too spicy, and not too tangy, so it doesn’t actually seem too out of place between two waffles. Soft and fairly fluffy, the waffles were

just firm enough to actually hold together the fillings, and the slic-es were easy to pick up and eat without any mess. Waffle WIN for Bencita’s! We’d love to try this one with a bull’s eye.

Their menu has got quite a lot of attempts at appealing to a local pallete, which we appreciated, and we’re looking forward to try-ing out their roast paan range. At Rs 150 for ambul thiyal, we were quite tempted.

Alas, we weren’t feeling par-ticularly gluttonous at the time. Also, we’re somewhat wary of the fajita and tortillas gimmick. They weren’t serving tortillas and quesadillas when we were there. If you’ve tried those, do let us know in the comments below.

BENCIta ON WHEELSDutugemunu Street, Kohuwala | 768 488 829

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AMBIENCE & SERVICEIt’s a food-truck on the side of a fairly busy road, so you’ll have to deal with vehicle fumes. We liked the fun lighting just above the counter, though it made our waf-fles look green, then blue, then orange. See .GIF below. WARN-ING: May or may not cause sei-zures.

They’ve got just two waffle ov-ens that they use to fire up a sandwich at a time, and man-age to serve up our orders within 10 minutes. We spoke to the owner and he seemed like a pretty affable character. If there’s anything specific you want or don’t want, they’re able to comply (e.g. no onions).

CONCLUSIONHaving started out in March, this

year, Bencita was initially set up along Marine Drive, near Ozo, but, they soon realized that the salty sea breeze was giving their jenny trouble. It turns out that they’ve got permission to oper-ate their food truck opposite the Laugfs on Havelock Road, so, here’s hoping it works out for them.

With the most expensive menu item priced at Rs 420, Bencita On Wheels is a good deal and we’re happy to see someone trying out the food truck route. If you drive

through Dutugemunu Street, try out the waffles.

There’s only enough parking for one vehicle. They close at 9.30 PM.

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