Today I’d like to welcome the first author from a new series of guest articles on Travel With Kat. So let me introduce, Agness, from Poland. Together with her friend Cez, she writes a blog I really love eTramping. She’s here to tell you all about street food in Sri Lanka. I hope you will make her feel at home.
A mini-guide to Sri Lankan street food
Not without reason, Sri Lanka is called the “Tear-drop of India”. Apart from its shape of a tear-drop falling from a face that is India, there is something else – its cuisine – so spicy you may want to cry at some point. Some people love it (my best friend I travelled with – Cez) and some hate it – me, as a mild food lover.
My first thought when trying local food in Sri Lanka was “it is so much like Indian food!” The cuisine of Sri Lanka shows some Indian influence indeed, however its taste, the combination of spices and flavours makes it so unique and different from India and any other Asian country. The more you eat, the more you feel it. Most of the dishes are hot, with spices so strong they are sometimes hard to consume. Nevertheless, you can find mild ones amongst them and if you are spice-loving person, you will be in heaven (or hell some may say).
Rice and Curry
On the plane to Colombo, we met a Swedish guy, who has lived in Sri Lanka for 20 years. He remarked that there are two traditional meals in Sri Lanka: curry and rice or rice and curry. This statement, although a joke, is kind of true.
When I first came to Colombo and asked for some traditional Sri Lankan food I was served a curry with rice. The menu, in this “restaurant”, consisted of fish or vegetable curries with rice – very delicious for fans of mouth-burning food, but way too spicy for me.
Traditional Sri Lankan dinner: Rice and Curry
Some cooks make curry sweet by adding some coconut milk, flour and honey. There is a great variety of colours and flavours of curry such as fish, meat, and vegetable curries. I had a yellow curry as well, which featured melted yellow peppers and it was very delicious but did not look nice. This kind of food is very cheap in comparison to European prices. You can get a proper curry meal for less than 300 Sri Lankan rupees which is about $2.30 (USD), £1.50 (GBP) or 1.80 euros.
Roti
Roti is a very easy to prepare meal served in most restaurants or food stalls. It looks like a pancake, but it is more of a flat bread. Roti can be served with any fruit or melted chocolate as a dessert or with a fish or vegetables as a lunch or evening meal. I am a chocolate lover, so chocolate and banana rotis were my favourite ones!
Chocolate roti, perfect for a dessert
The way roti dough is kneaded is very much like making pizza dough. The whole preparation is a show. I found it very entertaining to sit at the table and watch it being made. The cost of roti is between Rs 175 and Rs 300.
The chief is spinning roti dough around in his hands until it gets very thin.
Hoppers
Hoppers in their shape remind me a lot of tulips and in their taste sour-dough pancakes. They are served mainly for breakfast with a mix of red onions and spices or eggs. They are made from a fermented batter of rice flour with a touch of coconut milk and a dash of palm toddy (alcoholic beverage). These ingredients mixed together give a very sour flavour to the dish, so yeast is often used to make it less sour.
Street food in Sri Lanka | Egg hopper served for breakfast
I found many different types of hoppers being served on the streets of various towns, such as egg, milk or string hoppers for a very affordable price of Rs 75 each, which could fill some people up. My favourite one was egg hopper, simple and mild.
Spicy sandwiches and samosas
Whatever the food in Sri Lanka, there is always something spicy in there. Sandwiches and samosas are no exception. The best thing about Sri Lanka is the availability of food wherever you go. Whether you are at the train station waiting for your delayed departure or strolling down the street, you can find samosas and sandwiches everywhere. Each for only Rs 30. I liked the ham and cheese sandwiches as there was not much chilli in there. Just remember to haggle, they will try to sell it with a higher profit margin than usually.
A point to note is that hygiene standards, in most cases, would result in instant business closure in many countries, so try the street food in Sri Lanka at your own risk!
A great selection of sandwiches at the train station in Galle
Drinks
Locals in Sri Lanka drink a lot of sweet tea and coffee. These drinks are way too sweet for me though. I fancied the fruit shakes instead, which are served along the streets in Colombo. I had a banana and mango shake every morning to start a new day full of energy. Moreover, you can get bottled water everywhere.
Milk tea served for a breakfast, can be combined with Sri Lankan spicy cakes
Desserts
Good news for sweets lovers. Sri Lanka is the land of cakes and doughnuts. The most famous sweet is an oil cake made with rice flour and treacle, then deep-fried to golden brown colour. There are plenty of pudding-like dishes made from coconut milk. Most of the cakes contain chilli peppers and lots of sugar (what a combination!).
Spicy chocolate cakes and a cherry donut
You can also spot small local shops where spicy crisps are sold. They taste like natural potato crisps (very tough) dipped in chilli pepper. What I found really odd in Sri Lanka is that people start their breakfast with something sweet. It is either a sweet coffee or tea served with a hopper or a piece of cake itself.
Street food in Sri Lanka | Spicy crisps
Fruits
The tropical climate is a perfect place to grow fruits of many kinds. For this reason, fresh produce is widely available and street markets are the best places to stock up on vitamins. Prices are as low or lower than in South East Asia, so if you do not like spicy cuisine you can indulge yourself in the healthy sweetness of fruits. I saw a yellow coconut in Sri Lanka for the first time in my life but the taste was very similar to Thai coconuts.
Street food in Sri Lanka | Yellow coconuts are perfect for a snack when being on the beach
How is food in Sri Lankan served?
While trying street food in Sri Lanka it is uncommon to get the purchased delicacies in a western-style plastic bag. Instead, you will get what you bought in a sheet from an exercise book (one that already has been used by a good student) or in newspaper. At first, it was very uninviting but I quickly got used to it. We even got an English test so could see the level of Sri Lankan primary education 🙂
A paper bag made out of a certificate
Summary
There is no way to be neutral to Sri Lankan street food – one can love it or hate it. Certainly, it is going to be spicy and most likely you may not always want to see how it has been prepared, but the taste compensates for this. As much as it is good to eat spicy food in a hot climate, which results in higher water intake, it is also good for the pocket. It is easy to try several different things and pay less than $5 all day.
Do not worry if you do not like to experiment, western food is available in most places, where at least some tourists go. However, prices will reflect the trouble the chef has to prepare something not so spicy!
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Thank you so much Indrani for the kind words. Fried fish cutlets were also my favourite. I really miss Sri Lankan food nowadays.
Youve really managed to capture the essence of Sri Lankan food. Im a Sri Lankan and love pastries and bites especially freshly fried fish cutlets or freshly baked Malu Paan ( fish in bread bun). Cant beat them on long trips traveling along the coast.
Hi Peter. That’s so true. Thanks for sharing. Great you pointed that out!
Hi Kawshi. Wow, thanks a lot. Looks like I have missed a lot being in Sri Lanka. Hoppers and rottis are being served all day long in local restaurants so it is easy to confuse it with lunch or dinner dishes. I know it’s hard to believe but chilli cakes (fruit cakes and chocolate fudge) are available everywhere, so we thought there were traditional Sri Lankan delicacies. Thanks for sharing the info with me.Next time I will venture out with a local guide and try your hand at more authentic Sri Lankan dishes, that’s for sure! 😉
Hi Agness,
Quite a refreshing account coming from a tourist on Sri Lankan food, I am a Sri Lankan and I was quite stunned to read about the ‘chillies in cakes. Our national airline of coz had a chillie chocolate range once upon a time.
We have a tinge of Indianness in our food, maybe because it is the same set of spices that are used in both Indian and Sri Lankan cuisine. Yet, when it comes to dishes they are oceans apart (literally).
Also, a typical Sri Lankan breakfast is rice and curry or bread with a fish/ lentil curry accompanied by tea or coffee (which as you said could be too sweet)..and then there are other delicacies like hoppers, string hoppers, rotti boiled gram, etc,. and cake is not in the list.
When it comes to rice too, red rice is a popular dish among Sri Lankans and there is also delicious milk rice (rice cooked in coconut milk instead of water), which is prepared for special occasions such as the New Year, weddings etc.,this is served with chopped onions.
The orange coconut is called ‘king coconut’ in Sri Lanka and apart from that you find mango, guava, and pineapple sellers on roadsides. Fruits are in abundance here coz most of the houses have home gardens.
The South has a food culture altogether different from the rest as not only you find the best black pepper tuna curry cooking in a house in Galle,but also you will be served smooth buffalo curd with honey for dessert (even the local tourists go to South to eat curd)
If at all, you come to Sri Lanka again you must venture out with a local guide and try your hand at more authentic Sri Lankan dishes!
I think one should always try the local food because if you eat your regular food than you just don’t know what you might be missing. As Sri Lankan food is nice blend of Indian and other south cuisines which is just delicious. As most of the street food in Indian sub continent served in news paper sheet and the best thing about this food apart from delicious it is very cheap.
Daniel, that’s a real shame. Many people think that if they have already been to India, they don’t need to visit Sri Lanka, but you will find it so different from India in terms of, for example, food. I didn’t like spicy food that much, but I really enjoyed Sri Lankan cuisine. Try to make it next year, you will love the food for sure.
I like spicy food, so I’m pretty sure I would love the curry and rice in Sri Lanka. I was actually planning on going there this past winter when I was in India, but the Indians wouldn’t give me a multiple entry visa, so I had to scrap the idea.
That’s such a shame! I hope you make it there another time.
Hi Chandra. Thank you for your kind words. You are absolutely right saying that the spiciness in food keeps getting stronger as you head south. I travelled to Colombo, Ella, Galle, Yala National Park and Pinnawala. All places are located in the southern part of the country.
Oh I see, we were told that the cakes were traditional Sri Lankan cakes, but maybe they just wanted to sell them to us. Thank you for sharing it with me. 😉
Agness: Wonderful post on your first hand experience with Sri Lankan food. I was born in Sri Lanka and lived my first 28 years there. I’d like to make a couple of comments. The spiciness in food keeps getting stronger as you head south. Even among natives the tolerance for hot and spicy food varies quite a lot. My mom prepared food that I would rate mild while food at my wife’s family, from Galle, was extremely spicy. Your mention of chillies and chocolate in cakes is certainly not traditional and it must be a very recent improvisation.
Hi Chandra, Kat here. Thanks for commenting. How interesting! I’ve never been to Sri Lanka but would love to go and discover your culture including all this delicious food. Chilli chocolate is a bit of an ‘in thing’ here in the UK so maybe someone there caught on to this and introduced it to tempt the UK tourists. Who knows!
Hi Jennie. The one we had was a fruit cake with chilli and a chocolate chilli sponge. I don’t know the names in Sri Lankan language unfortunately.
That sounds good Agness! I love dark chilli chocolate but I’ve never had it in a cake… not yet anyway!
I am Sri Lankan. never knew our cakes contained chilli and sugar. Can you give me the names of the cakes, please?
Hi Kate, thank you for reading this. You must go to Sri Lanka one day, it’s a lovely place and you will have a chance to compare it with India, which would be a great experience 🙂
Hi Anita, thank you. I also had dined out in Sri Lankan restaurants before I went there. Having a proper Sri Lankan meal in a proper Sri Lankan restaurant is a different experience- the food is hotter, more delicious and so spicy!
Hi travellingbag! Thank you for your kind words. Great to meet you too. My stomach was crumbling too when I was writing this post :):) and I miss the food a lot.
Hi Suzanne. Thank you very much for your kind words. If you don’t like spicy food or you don’t eat spicy food on a regular basis, you will find it way too spicy. However, the good news is you can have some nice mild food in your hotel- still Sri Lankan and very delicious.
Agness, this is a very interesting guest post and the photos are fantastic. Like it was for you, it sounds like most Sri Lankan food would be too spicy for me and as a Baby Boomer, I’d probably be quite leery of street food. (I find that at my age, I don’t bounce back from overdoing it as quickly as I used to. I’m thinking that food poisoning would lay me quite low.)
Great to meet you Agness and love this post. My brother and his family lived in Sri Lanka for several years because of work but unfortunately I never got to visit them there. Looking at this food I’m wishing I had 🙂
Great post Agness – thanks for explaining some of the food. I regularly go to a Sri Lankan restaurant at home and can’t get enough of their spicy delicacies. It was interesting to know more about them, although I would also love to go there and eat local!!!
Great post Agness. It all looks delicious and what great value too! I’ve been to India but didn’t make it down to Sri Lanka… one day!
It was my pleasure Kathryn to work with you ! You are not only a great traveller and writer, but also an amazing mentor. I hope your readers will enjoy reading it as much as I have.
Thank you Agness. I really enjoyed working with you too and love your post. I have never been to Sri Lanka but really hope I get there some day soon. The food sounds wonderful. I love spicy food (although I don’t like it too hot!).
Love your site – those tiger shots are amazing but how awful about how they are treated. Glad you found out the truth behind it!