Food in Sri Lanka - more than rice and curry

Today's blog is about food in Sri Lanka. We have travelled around Sri Lanka for two weeks and have tried both this and that. Here we have now collected our experiences and experiences of Sri Lankan food.

Food in Sri Lanka

What kind of food do you get in Sri Lanka? We like Asian food and had perhaps imagined great variety, and a cuisine that was perhaps a little closer to Indian. Yes, you can get good food in Sri Lanka, but the food was perhaps a little less varied than we expected, and it was very little like Indian food.

Generally speaking, there is a lot of rice, which is then combined with meat, chicken, fish or vegetables in a number of recurring dishes. The food is often spicy, and you can often choose whether you want the dish "medium" or "strong". One tip is to start with medium - even that can be a bit strong for a Swede! Between dishes, there is a plethora of fantastic fruits to enjoy.

breakfast

During our stay in Sri Lanka we probably stayed in more than ten different hotels (in the lower price range), and thus we tried a bunch of different breakfasts. The hotels serve either European breakfast or Sri Lankan breakfast, or a mixture of both.

European breakfasts almost always involve toasted white bread with butter and jam and eggs, often in any form, and possibly a piece of sausage. The Sri Lankan breakfast often consists of roti (flatbread) and some spicy mess, and possibly noodles and perhaps a lentil stew. In addition, juice or fruit is often provided, regardless of the type of breakfast.

Buffet

We don't know if the buffet restaurants might be mostly aimed at tourists, but we do know that there are quite a few of them. They often serve things like rice, vegetable rice, various stews, grilled chicken legs, beans and maybe soup and bread and papadam, which is a thin crispy flatbread. We got tired of the buffets after a while, but initially it was a good way to try different types of food in Sri Lanka.

Rice and noodles

Many menus include plenty of rice and noodle dishes. It could be vegetable rice or nasi goreng, or perhaps noodles with vegetables, prawns or chicken.

Rice and curry

You can't talk about Sri Lankan food without talking about rice and curry. Rice and curry are staples in many families and can be found in any restaurant serving Sri Lankan food. The curry can be made from meat, chicken, fish, shrimp, vegetables or lentils (dhal).

Devilled chicken/prawns/fish

Menus often include dishes called 'devilled' followed by, for example, chicken, prawns or fish. These are spicy and often hot dishes that are served in sauce, along with rice.

Battered chicken/prawns/fish

Another common dish on the menu is the dish with the word 'battered'. This turned out to be raw material with some kind of soft frying, served with rice and perhaps salad.

Fish and seafood

On the coasts, a lot of seafood is served. For example, grilled tuna fillets, grilled whole fish, prawns and squid are common here. The food is often served with rice, but in tourist areas French fries are also common.

Foreign dishes

In major cities and tourist areas you will find many foreign dishes, such as Chinese food, burgers, pizza and pasta.

More specialities

A speciality, sometimes served for breakfast, is roti flatbread. There is also a dish called 'kottu', which consists of shredded roti fried together with vegetables, meat or chicken and spices.

Another speciality among all food in Sri Lanka is what is called 'hoppers'. This dish is a kind of pancake fried in a round bowl, sometimes served with eggs inside. 'String hoppers', despite the name, are something completely different - namely steamed rice noodles.

Do you dare to try? Or have you already been to Sri Lanka? If so, please tell us about your experiences with the food!

More to read

Below you will find more reading about Sri Lanka, but also about food and food culture in other Asian countries. Enjoy!