Sri Lankan Food Festival at Blooms, Eros
Even though over the years cuisines from all over have stormed into Delhi, there remain quite a few that are little known to the capital city. Coastal food is one such example, with Swagath and Gunpowder perhaps the only two worthy contenders we can think of that serve this cuisine. Rarer still is the coastal food of Sri Lanka. However, thanks to an initiative by Eros Hotel (Managed by Hilton) to have Chef Ajith Hewabandula and Chef Ravindra Pushpakumara (from Hilton Hotel in Colombo) visit the city and further thanks to the invitation by Sid, we got to sample the Sri Lankan food on the inaugural night.
To celebrate this Sri Lankan food festival (13th—22nd January), the hotel has arranged for a special setup in the open section of Blooms with some Sri Lankan decor and few live counters. Also coal and gas burners try to make the chilly outdoor a little more cosy. As we walked along the neatly arranged buffet, the first thing we noticed was that the vegetarian items far outnumbered the non-veg options. This was quite unexpected, for we thought coastal food would majorly consist of seafood. The head chef quite rightly pointed out that this was, unlike buffets at other places, done so that vegetarians do not feel left out at such an occasion. Going by our previous experience at Eros, where everyone (including hardcore non-vegetarians) unanimously loved the vegetarian offerings, the sole non-vegetarian in our group was not complaining.
Rice-flour Battered Prawns and Spicy Chicken
Our meal started with an array of deep-fried starters (Tapioca, Batter Fried Crispy Mushroom, Rice-flour Battered Cuttle Fish to name a few) served right off the frying pan accompanied with a spicy sauce. We followed it by tasting few salads and then quickly moved on to the main courses. Of the vegetarian selection, their preparations of Brinjol, Lady Finger, and raw Mango were clear standouts. The sweet Brinjol Pehil complemented the coarse rice-flour based Pol Roti quite well, and the spicy Lady Finger Tempered with the Mango Ambula made for a very tangy combination. Along with the coconut sprinkled dry Green Gram Melluma and the Potato White Curry, this meal evoked fond memories of school dinners from @rungta’s time at a boarding school in Tamil Nadu.
Among the non-veg dishes Chicken Black Curry and the Mutton Stew were done in a typical coastal food style with a strong flavour of coconut milk. Sea-fish lovers would certainly enjoy the hot Tuna Red Curry. More than the Yellow Rice, we liked the Sri Lankan hoppers which they call Appa — a less-fluffy-more-crispy variety of Appams of Kerala.
The meal ended with a round of coconut and rice-flour based dry desserts.
Sri Lankan cuisine is very similar to Keralite food. As a general observation, most dishes by and large made use of coconut and some strong spices. Rice is their principle cereal and interestingly all the courses from starters to desserts made use of rice-flour. Wikipedia says “many spicy Sri Lankan preparations are believed to be among the world’s hottest in terms of chilli content”. While we did come across some hot chutneys, we were perhaps not offered such preparations (or maybe, being Indians, we have grown immune to hot and spicy food). Whenever we asked the Sri Lankan chef about any of the recipes, his answer always had some mysterious “Sri Lankan Spices”. No wonder Sri Lanka is known as ‘Spice Island’.
Closest Metro Station: Nehru Place
