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.
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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!
You might also like:
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Restaurants in Panglao in the Philippines - 9 tips
What to eat in Uzbekistan? - 12 Uzbek delicacies
Turkish cuisine - 20 dishes and delicacies of Turkey
Durian, the king of fruits - Auntie Anna's fruit session
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Johnny Friskilä says:
Yes, no, what can you say? I had some of the best grilled fresh prawns of my life in Sri Lanka (Mount Lavinia). I also had very good crab in pepper sauce at the Ministry of Crab in Colombo. But these are the exceptions. I also feel that I have a little to say when it comes to Sri Lankan food. It may be a blog post at some point. But no, basically I agree with you in what between the lines seems to be your conclusion: Sri Lanka is not a major culinary destination.
09 January 2019 - 7:32
Helena says:
It sounds wonderful with the shrimp and crab! 🙂 No, it is true that we did not experience it as a culinary destination directly, although much tasted good!
09 January 2019 - 17:18
Solan says:
I have only visited Sri Lanka with Freedom. So keep up with the blog. A clever way to travel! ?
How interesting!
? The food that appeals to me is probably anything with devilled in the name.⭐⭐⭐
09 January 2019 - 8:34
Helena says:
Nice that you "hang out" with us Solan! 🙂
09 January 2019 - 17:19
Emma, sun like sun? says:
It looks so delicious!
I haven't tried it, of course, because I haven't been there. But I have heard many of the names even though I didn't know what they were.
To a Swede, the domestic breakfast sounds like a full lunch or dinner. But on the other hand, I think beans, sausages and fried eggs also fall into that category. I love the breakfast buffets where I can pick a little of everything, try and taste, but I'm happy to skip the hot stuff.
09 January 2019 - 11:12
Helena says:
The breakfasts were sometimes substantial! But it was not a buffet, it was always laid out at the table.
09 January 2019 - 17:20
Eva on a rucksack says:
Loved the food in Sri Lanka, so many lovely stews and spices. Just everything I like about Asia - a little heat, a little coconut, lots of coriander and lots of vegetables. ?
Were there many cross-over restaurants in the areas where you travelled?
09 January 2019 - 11:26
Helena says:
Glad you liked the food in Sri Lanka Eva! Cross over? No, we didn't really notice that, but maybe it depends on how you define cross over?
09 January 2019 - 17:46
Ann says:
It looks delicious, although it's not really food that appeals to me, apart from the pasta - I could live on that 🙂 .
09 January 2019 - 13:21
Helena says:
Haha, I would get tired of pasta, but luckily the taste is different 🙂 .
09 January 2019 - 19:08
Role o Carina says:
Mmmmm, looks like there's a lot of good stuff in there too!
And so nice to travel with you there 🙂 .
09 January 2019 - 13:39
Helena says:
Glad you wanted to travel with us! 🙂
09 January 2019 - 19:08
Ditte says:
You have tried your hand at quite a few dishes and I recognise most of them. Interesting reading. I have eaten a lot of shrimp and seafood here and of course a lot of the other things you have also tried when we have been here. The breakfasts we ate were probably sometimes more western inspired but it probably also depends on which hotels you stay at. we varied a lot but certainly there was a difference in breakfasts when it came to where you lived and so also the food in general. We ate a lot at local restaurants and had good accompaniment here by Sri Lankan friends and our drivers.
But in my opinion, you probably don't go to Sri Lanka just for the "food".
09 January 2019 - 16:58
Helena says:
I probably agree that I would not travel to Sri Lanka solely for the sake of food. But there is a lot of other things that attract 🙂.
09 January 2019 - 19:09
BP says:
Apart from the breakfast that looks like a lunch, I have to say that Sri Lankan cuisine is very similar to Indian cuisine, but with different names. The bread corresponds to nan bread, for example. I think the food looks very good and appetising, and I would definitely eat it.
International cuisine is great, but if I'm in a foreign country, I pretty much only eat local food.
09 January 2019 - 18:34
Helena says:
Surely it is most interesting to eat the local dishes! I mostly did that, but there was some pizza too 😉 (A certain similarity with the Indian, but the Indian feels more varied I must say. The bread we only got for breakfast and tasted quite different from naan bread, at least as you get it in Sweden).
11 January 2019 - 5:36
Mr Nils-Åke Hansson says:
Sitting here reading and my stomach is working like F1 not in a positive sense (stomach flu).
But how exciting to get an insight into the food you have eaten. But do you manage to avoid stomach flu?
09 January 2019 - 21:26
Helena says:
We got a bit sick to our stomachs at some point, but we never got sick enough to feel bad.
11 January 2019 - 5:37
Maria / Magnolia Magis says:
Well, it doesn't sound like something for me more than rice and fruit then... Glad to see that you tried a little different! Is there anything you liked more than others?
10 January 2019 - 18:40
Helena says:
I can't say I found any real favourites, but I liked shrimp dishes, and ordered shrimp curry several times which could be very tasty.
11 January 2019 - 5:39
Kathy says:
Going there in just over a week. Fear that it will be a health journey ? Love all food, not picky at all, but the coriander!!!! ????
It will be interesting to see how I solve this,
11 January 2019 - 7:39
Helena says:
What fun! I didn't realise there was coriander in everything ... but chilli! 😉
11 January 2019 - 7:48