anythinglily: Sri Lanka Travel Pt 11: Hoppers, String Hoppers And Everything Sri Lankan

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Sri Lanka Travel Pt 11: Hoppers, String Hoppers And Everything Sri Lankan

This post marks the end of my Sri Lankan Travel. It is mostly about my gastronomical adventure but I've also decided not to forget the 'small small things' that created an impression on me during my travel around Sri Lanka.

In my quest for Sri Lankan food, I patronized a number of eateries and these are some of the restaurants I visited. Food is generally expensive (compared to food back home) as the Sri Lankans really know how to take advantage of foreigners. Many eateries have two types of pricing, one for the locals and one for people like us.

My driver told me he could easily get a meal of rice with curry, meat and vegetables for 100Rs (RM3) but we normally have to fork out about 650-1000Rs pp (RM20 to RM30pp) for a meal in a decent restaurant.

The string hoppers (locally called idiyappam) is a culinary specialty in Sri Lanka. There are always two types served, the white and the brown. (We call them 'putu mayam' here). This is a simple but very delectable meal.

The hoppers or 'Appam' is very popular in Sri Lanka.

Appam is normally taken with sugar and coconut milk in Malaysia but this restaurant that I went to served appam with hot chilli paste (sambal). Weird combination but not bad.

The 'Asmi' looks like string hoppers but it is a sweet local delicacy.

We tried this traditional Sri Lankan meal at a few places. This is from a restaurant in Kandy. It is nice but can't beat our 'nasi daun pisang'.

This is a similar traditional Sri Lankan set meal but from a restaurant in Negombo. It was awesome, one of my best meals in Sri Lanka.

The traditional Sri Lankan set meal from Shinagawa Beach Resort was OK but cost a bomb with the taxes thrown in.

Have you eaten roti canai the size of a tray?? We get it here in Balapitiya.

When we got tired of Sri Lankan, we went Chinese.

We tried to opt for seafood each time we ate out as Sri Lanka is a fishing island where tonnes of fish and seafood are caught each day. This is vermicelli with fish fritters around it.

Crab fried rice, crab curry (top row)

It was my first time drinking tea from a stainless steel cup and saucer.

Road side stalls sell fruits which are pickled and coated with chilli for added oomph.

Saw something that looked like popcorn but was not. 'Pop rice" ??

The smallest watermelons I've ever seen - just the size of a palm.

Fride rice? Fried rice? Whatever are they selling?

I was quite excited when I saw this.

I'm not sure how the lemon grass is seasoned but it was sold as snacks. I regretted not trying a few sticks.

King coconuts are sold everywhere and each costs between RM0.90 to Rm1.50. We had close to a dozen of these as they were super sweet and so...oo cheap.

And this is how you eat the flesh at a road side stall. A wedge is sliced off the coconut as a make-do spoon.

A very traditional way of storing eggs at a provision shop in Kandy.

This is a chain of restaurant which you see in many Sri Lankan towns.

These surely brought me to many places. I will definitely miss the tuk-tuks of Sri Lanka.

I was wondering what a spice garden is and ended up visiting two. They claim there is a herbal cure for almost any sickness. Coconut oil, sandalwood oil, cinnamon oil, just name it. You get them all here but they are so..oo expensive.

Made in Sri Lanka wind chimes.

There are many turtle hatcheries in Sri Lanka. We visited one where we got to see albino turtles, handicapped turtles, deformed turtles, baby turtles and many species of turtles.