Koggala places to visit
26
Feb

Galle Villa Holiday Guide: Sri Lankan Dishes To Savour During Your Holiday

Quintessentially Sri Lankan Dishes to Try During Your Holiday

Ancient traders, explorers, and colonials influenced Sri Lanka’s traditional cuisine. Nature’s plentiful bounty and spices from the days of early global spice trade flavour the island nation’s dishes. If you’ve been considering booking a holiday villa on Koggala Lake then you’re about to make a great decision. Koggala and surrounding towns are fast developing as upcoming places for Sri Lankan locals and expats to open new restaurants. Although Sea Heart House’s chef Ranga will do his best to entice you to eat in, you’ll want to add a few authentic Sri Lankan restaurants to your ‘places to visit in Koggala bucket list’. Here is a short guide to help you explore Sri Lankan cuisine in the local area during your Galle Villa holiday. 

Sri Lankan dishes you to have try on your Galle Villa holiday.

Sour fish curry

Tangy, peppery and subtly spiced ‘Ambul Thiyal’ or sour fish curry goes well with fluffy white rice of ‘Pol roti’ made with rice flour and scraped coconut. The signature flavour of sour fish curry comes from dried ‘malabar tamarind’. The dish originated in the south of Sri Lanka as a way of preserving fish and it is made with tuna, bonito or mackerel. To dine on sour fish curry while you gaze at the vast blueness of the Indian Ocean visit the  Salty Snapper restaurant in Koggala.

String hoppers

String hoppers are rounded tangles of lacey strands of rice flour that come out piping hot from a steamer. These crumble in the mouth steamed rice noodles pair well with creamy, lightly spiced coconut cream curry, thick chicken or fish curry and fiery ‘pol sambol’. Pol sambol is a mix of coconut flakes, whole chilies, maldive fish flakes, onion and garlic dressed with a squeeze of lime juice. Called Idiyappa or idiyappam in Sinhalese and Tamil respectively, string hoppers are served for breakfast or dinner in Sri Lanka.

Lamprais

Lamprais is a flavoursome tribute to the island’s Dutch-burger heritage. This dish is generally baked in banana leaf.  The banana leaf hugs a big lump of previously prepared yellow rice enclosing, fried sweet and spicy onions, fish cutlet, lampara curry made with meat, fried ash plantain, a fried and pickled concoction of eggplant and a boiled and a fried egg.