Sri Lanka is a beautiful island filled with ethnic diversity, culture and vibrant history. Throughout years of colonization and influence from other countries, Sri Lanka has adapted its food culture into a blend of different curry concoctions and tasty dishes. A few things about Sri Lankan cuisine food can be said with certainty: we thoroughly love our spices, flavourful and deep-fried food. The cultural cuisine of Lanka will leave your mouth rejoicing with happiness. With the booming restaurant scene in Colombo, Culture Colombo (CC) is one of the latest additions on the culinary block. They offer an extensive range of authentic Sri Lankan dishes from around the country with their very own modern twist.
Ambience
Culture Colombo is located at Kensington Garden on Duplication Road; when you walk into the restaurant, you will notice that they are super spacious, have indoor and outdoor seating and also have ample parking space. The interior is attractive, with the use of vibrant colours and a homely ambience. The interior is designed to resemble a walawwa from the olden days along with some modern architecture. All the art adorning the walls within the establishment are courtesy of local artists and photographers and both paintings and photographs are prominently credited to its respective artist. The waiters were accommodating, attentive, well-versed with the menu and prompt with recommendations. They also insisted on us eating with our hands to get the real Sri Lankan experience and provided us with aprons to keep us from getting messy.
Food
At CC they believe the authentic way to showcase Sri Lanka is through the cuisine. Their menu covers all genres of our country’s gastronomy, from the Jaffna crab curry to the local isso wade. They use fresh seasonal ingredients and seafood to enhance the flavours. Their wide range menu can easily leave you wondering what to pick, but the waiters were more than happy to make recommendations. We started off with the Homemade Ginger Beer and it was better than my expectations. It had a strong flavour of ginger, yet it was not overpowering. The lime in this drink added a nice tanginess that I loved. Moving on to their famous Bamboo Biriyani; we opted for the chicken version, which was presented from a steaming hot bamboo making it Instagram-worthy and interesting. It came with a side of raita, homemade chutney and masala curry, tasted good and had generous servings of chicken pieces.
Scrolling through their menu, the page titled ‘The matti walande dry curry’ definitely caught our attention. These dishes were served tangy or spicy according to our preference on a banana leaf. We tried the Prawn Dry Curry Bowl, which is one of their signature dishes. The prawn is cooked in a clay pot served with a carb of our choice along with onion sambol. We went for roast paan because a good roast paan and prawn curry is always a winner. The prawn was cooked right, but I personally felt it needed a tad bit of more seasoning. However, there was an ample of prawns – with the onion sambol and roast paan combination, it hit the mark.
Culture Colombo offers a business lunch that comes with a choice of drink, mains and dessert. Since an authentic Sri Lankan meal cannot be completed without rice and curry, we opted to try out some white rice which came with a side of vegetable curries, mallung (green leaves) and achcharu. Since we also needed a pairing of curries with the rice, we ordered Kukulas Kuluwata Uyala which is chicken cooked in Ceylon spice-blended black curry and Maalu Ambulthiyal, a unique local fish recipe marinated in tangy and peppery sauce. I personally liked both the curries as they had bold flavours and sourness respectively, which was a delight. Our absolute favourite and the best dish we tried was the Hot Butter Dallo, perfectly batter fried cuttlefish cooked in spices and blended in red curry sauce. The seasoning was on point and tasted great. This is definitely my pick from CC and recommended too!
Overall
Though we were already stuffed, we had to end the meal on a sweet note. Me being a dessert fan, I was a bit disappointed to find very few options of desserts. I went for the Watalappam, but it did not hit the mark for me. They also had ice cream available, from which we indulged in chocolate flavour. It was classic goodness and couldn’t go wrong. All in all, at Culture Colombo the ambience is great with warm and well-trained staff. Since they are new to the culinary scene, I hope they will be consistent in their service and quality. The prices are not that heavy on your wallet, it’s reasonable in comparison to the proportion sizes. It’s worth dropping by for a good authentic Sri Lankan fix!
Reviewed by Shafiya Nawzer