6 Sri Lankan Foodie Experiences You Shouldn’t Miss

From guided food tours in the city and countryside plantation visits, to enjoying the local flavours at whimsical beachside restaurants and a whole lot more in between, Sri Lanka is undoubtedly a gourmand’s paradise.  Raul Dias brings you 6 unique ways to celebrate one of the best things about the tear drop island—its food!  

By Raul Dias

Hunt Down Local Treats
Compared to its rather diminutive size, you’re in for a treat with the sheer volume of street food you can sample when in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo. From the ambient “chop-chop” sound of the ubiquitous kottu rotty available at almost every street corner, to the Dutch colonial influenced rice and meat preparation called lamprais, the culinary landscape of the city is peppered with delectable offerings. A great orientation to them is by signing up with the newly launched Airbnb Experiences’ Epic Local Food Hunt 3.5-hour long tour with food guru Arqam. Ten local delicacies from isso wade (crispy prawn fritters) and egg hoppers to sweets like kalu dodol (cashew and palm sugar fudge) are in store for you. (www.airbnb.co.in/experiences/222313)

Flavours of the East!
Reflective of Colombo’s diverse and decidedly eclectic dining out scene, are a number of international cuisine restaurants that find themselves plonked cheek-by-jowl in a mural-decorated, former industrial alley off the main Park Street. And one such former warehouse-turned-hipster chic café is Monsoon. Here, chefs Ambrim from Malacca in Malaysia and Chef Marilyn from the Kalinga province in the Philippines dish out the regions’ favourite dishes from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam to enormous success, all in a setting that is both cozy and at its whimsical best. Pro tip: dig into the scrumptious Balinese pork belly with sambal matah that is served here and thank us later! (www.monsooncolombo.com)

Dine in Style
A labour of love by Sri Lanka’s culture and arts maven Shanth Fernando, Paradise Road The Gallery Café is an ode to all things black and white from the exquisite table linen to the fine, locally produced crockery and cutlery. Established in 1998, this stylish restaurant dishing out elevated versions of traditional Sri Lankan dishes is housed in the former offices of world-renowned Sri Lankan architect, the late Geoffrey Bawa. Make sure to call for the black pork curry served with saffron rice and the caramalised onion seeni sambol to know what divinity tastes like. But hang on, there’s more on offer for the lover of art. Flanking the café is the iconic Paradise Road Galleries that features monthly rotating exhibitions by established and emerging Lankan artists. (www.paradiseroad.lk)

Get Cooking…
Head up country to the fecund city of Kandy and let Chitra, a government licensed cooking teacher since 1989 be your hands-on guide into the world of home style Sri Lankan cookery. The immersive, 3-hour long Airbnb Experiences’ Flavours of Sri Lanka cooking class is where you will experience the ways of cooking typical Sri Lankan dishes like kiri bhat (savoury rice cake) and parippu (lentils curry) in clay pots, using traditional equipment to heighten your ‘live and learn like a local’ experience. And when you’re done, you get to sit down and enjoy the fruits of your collective labour. (www.airbnb.co.in/experiences/340067)

Cinnamon 101
As one the main contributors that put this tiny island on the world’s spice trade map—with everyone from the Dutch to the Portuguese and lastly the British claiming a piece of the spicy pie with their colonisation—cinnamon is at the fore in Sri Lanka till this very day. Get up close and personal with this fragrant bark and know all there is to know about it by taking the Airbnb Experiences’ 1.5-hour long Cinnamon Permaculture Garden Visit in Beruwala near the historic city of Galle at the very tip of the island’s southern coast. The organic cinnamon plantation and permaculture garden is a one-hectare farm where you will be shown not just how cinnamon grows but also get an introduction to the hundreds of different vegetables, fruits, spices, nuts, timber and Ayurvedic plants that are grown there. (www.airbnb.co.in/experiences/338327) 

  

‘Pun’ Times in Galle!
Still in Galle? Make sure to check out two very interesting places where the puns on offer are as good as the fare they dish out. First, have a light lunch at Tequila Mockingbird housed in the seaside Old Dutch Hospital. This one’s named after the cult-classic cocktail book of the same name, which itself is a pun on the legendary Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Here, you can scarf down a brilliantly made fish burger stuffed with tuna chunks coated in the fiery, local ambultiyal spice paste where the cloves establish their dominance over everything else...in a good way, that is! To cool things off, get yourself a double scoop of the orange zest and pistachio gelatos at Isle of Gelato—housed in a quaint rowhouse along the Old Town’s main Pedlar Street—that’s purported to be Galle’s, nay the country’s, best gelato place.   

(An edited version of this article appeared on 1 October 2018 in Travel + Leisure, India and South Asia http://travelandleisureindia.in/sri-lanka-for-foodies/)

Galle: Where Time Stands Still…

Situated at the very tip of the island of Sri Lanka, the historic city of Galle with its strong colonial influence and easy, laid-back vibe is a great holiday destination, offering a whole host of activities for you to partake in, says Raul Dias who tried out a few on a recent holiday

By Raul Dias

       

Let me be upfront with you. My very first encounter with Galle had left me heartbroken. It was exactly 11 months after the horrific 26^th December 2004 tsunami had all but decimated this once-beautiful city of Sri Lanka that sits at the very southern tip of the island nation. Everywhere I looked, a sea of rubble and reconstruction at a feverish pace assaulted by eyes. The historic Fort area where I was told the “real” Galle was, was unfortunately sealed off to non-residents and thus out of bounds for travellers like myself.
It was then that I made a promise to myself that I’d wait and let Galle rejuvenate before I set foot there once again. Little did I know then that it would be almost 13 years after that I’d be back. And boy, was I in for the surprise of my life or what.

Rise of the Phoenix
August 2018 and the Galle that showed itself to me was a complete volte-face from the one of my memories. Clean, freshly swept streets, whitewashed walls with colourful bougainvillea creeping all over them. Happy, smiling people greeted me everywhere I went. And not a single remnant of the earlier carnage of Mother Nature marred this new facet Galle was showing me. And yes, this time I not only got to ‘see’ the stunning Fort area but live in it as well!
My Airbnb accommodation, the brand new Yara Galle Fort boutique hotel—where my friends and I were the third set of guests to be welcomed into—is a magnificently restored former Dutch Colonial style home. Located in the very heart of the Fort, the hotel, I was told, was first built in the mid-1700s and is a mere 70 meters away from the pristine white painted Dutch Reformed Church.
Speaking of churches, for an area as small (130 acres) as the Fort, it sure had a lot of places of worship. From the Meeran Jumma Mosque opposite the lighthouse and the serene Sri Sudharmalaya Buddhist Temple on Parawa Street to the beautiful Anglican All Saints Church a few yards ahead of the Dutch Church, all exist in perfect harmony with each other.

A Walk Though History
Desirous of a more in-depth historical recounting of Galle that no amount of reading can provide, I signed up for the newly curated Airbnb Experiences’ ‘Galle Fort Walks with a Local’. Conducted by Atheeq, a budding travel photographer and fifth-generation member of a prominent gem trading Galle family, this 1.5 hours-long walk came highly recommended and something I was looking forward to.
And so, after a lunch of a yummy fish burger—made with chunks of tuna marinated in the local, jet black-coloured ambulthiyal spice mix that I enjoyed at the wonderfully ‘punny’ named Tequila Mockingbird Bar and Grill in the Old Hospital Building—we were off on foot to explore Galle with a local and yes, “like a local” as is the idea behind this Experiences initiative by Airbnb!
Here, we were shown places like the still-functioning court house, the town square in front of it and the Fort’s lighthouse that was built only post WWII, showing us that the Fort area kept evolving. The Portuguese, Dutch, and British occupied the Galle Fort at various points during Sri Lanka’s colonial history, and they have each left a unique imprint on its fabric. As we navigated our way through the Fort’s charming alleyways at a leisurely pace, a fascinating blend of local design traditions and European colonial influence became evident in the architectural style of its many interesting structures. Atheeq made sure to keep the walk peppered with interesting facts, stories, and myths, all interwoven by the unique perspective and narrative of a local like himself, who knows this terrain as well as the back of his hand. And as a parting treat, we were taken to Galle’s best gelato shop named Isle of Gelato for some divine treats like the pistachio and orange-cinnamon double scoop that I happily gourmandised.

Surf’s Up!
As one of the world’s leading new surfing hot-spots, with their impressive swells, the waters off the beaches in and around Galle are fast becoming a haven for surfers who flock to them in droves. And so, recognising this is another fun initiative by Airbnb Experiences—learning to surf with surfing guru Oshan Diluk.
Born and raised in beautiful Hikkaduwa a little further up from Galle, Oshan knows the best places around Galle to host successful surf lessons especially for beginners. With over four years of experience as a surfing instructor he provides a whole lot of tips and advice to help you ride your first waves. Interestingly, Oshan also volunteers to teach the local kids in Sri Lanka how to surf and many of his students have progressed and got scholarships to learn advanced level surfing in places like Indonesia, the surfing capital of Asia.
The first part of the 1.5 hours-long lesson takes place at the beach, where one can get an idea on how to find balance and the right posture on the board. Oshan make sure to also spend some time talking about safety rules and surfers’ etiquette. Afterwards you get to hit the water to put that theory into practice.
A hands-on holiday where you do a whole lot more than just ‘site-see’, now that’s Galle for you!
    

FACT FILE
Getting There
There are daily direct flights from most cities in India to Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo on airlines like Srilankan Airlines, Jet Airways, Air India and Spice Jet. Travel within Sri Lanka is easy with many buses, mini vans and car hire companies offering their services. The journey from Colombo to Galle using the super-efficient expressway is a comfortable two-hour drive.

When to Visit
The months from October to February are the best time to travel to Galle, when the region experiences a pleasant climate with plenty of cultural and artistic events taking place in and around the region.

Accommodation
Though Galle has an excellent selection of hotels to choose from to suit all budgets and tastes, why not get more up close and personal with the city and live like a local? Airbnb has an amazing portfolio of vacation homes that you can rent out. Visit www.airbnb.co.in for more information on accommodation options and the new, curated Airbnb Experiences in Galle.

(An edited version of this article appeared in the 31st August 2018 issue of the Afternoon Despatch & Courier newspaper, India on pages 14 and 15 http://www.afternoondc.in/48-hrs/galle-where-time-stands-still/article_230568)