Pot-luck cuisine
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2006
1
42
179
Trip End
Oct 31, 2007
Negombo,
Sri Lanka
Monday, January 15, 2007
The main highlight, and it certainly wasn't the food, but more about that later from Tim, was the secret underwater world we found by spending a mere 50p a time on snorkelling equipment. The sea at Una Watuna was amazingly clear and blue and there was some coral and fish activity really close to the shore, a matter of a couple of minutes swimming, no more. I had a bad snorkelling experience about 5 years ago in Egypt and have been frightened of doing it ever since, and this was my first attempt since then, so it was quite emotional at first for me, trying to get over my fear, and there were a few tears. But in 2 days we had 3 goes, and each time got better than the last, and what there was to see was really lovely
01 Lighthouse from Galle ramparts
. Just by swimming out a short distance we found some rocks which were covered in coral and had lots of beautiful tropical fish hiding in them and swimming around them. It was lovely to share the experience of spotting new fish and pointing them out to each other and to marvel together at how beautiful they were. It's amazing how much life there is just below the surface which you would never know about if you were just swimming above it. Hopefully there'll be lots more opportunities for snorkelling as the year progresses. (R) When we weren't visiting the underwater kingdom or skulking in our room (it rained pretty solidly for a day and a half of our stay), we were visiting the local restaurants in search of good, simple cooking. Nearly all of the local restaurants, in fact. We would have been quite happy to settle on just one but since they kept disappointing us, on a truly incredible scale, we kept having to try new places. A quick run-down, then:
Cormoran Restaurant: We walked into the restaurant where a local gent was eating some rather tasty looking calamari curry and rice. I said "can we have what he's having?" (trying not to sound too much like an extra from Harry Met Sally). The waiter said "yes". The waiter then proceeded to bring us devilled squid (a completely different dish - akin to squid in cheap barbecue sauce) as well as various bowls of curry. When we asked what had gone wrong, we were told that what we'd seen being eaten was just for staff but that tourists normally liked what we'd been given
02 Unawatuna beach
. Well, we didn't.Galle, Amangalla Hotel Restaurant (only a minor dig, this, because the meal as a whole was fab). I ordered Sri Lankan pot roast chicken with garlic curry. I got chicken breast with grilled vegetables. Granted, it appeared very near the Sri Lankan pot roast chicken with garlic curry on the menu, but it was very unlike it in taste (I can only assume, since we sent it back).
Thaproban Restaurant: I ordered a 'Mama-Mia' pizza which listed among its ingredients, salami, olives and bacon. Rach ordered spaghetti marinara (seafood pasta to you and me). I got a pizza which definitely had tomato and cheese (and, I think, onions) but none of the other ingredients. Rachel got a spaghetti napolitan (cheese, tomato, and probably onions but nary a prawn or other example of seafood to be seen). I was too tired and hungry to send mine back. Rach sent back hers. The same plate of pasta reappeared shortly after with some seafood mixed in but still completely different from the same dish we'd had two nights previously. We complained vociferously but Thaproban's idea of a discount was simply to knock-off the otherwise mandatory service charge. Next!
Surfer's Break cafe: This opened for breakfast at 8.00am, so we went along the next day so we could try the muesli (it seemed to be part western-run so we had high hopes and indeed their chocolate brownies the previous evening had been delicious and enable us to recover from our double-mistake pizza/pasta fiasco). Unfortunately, it seemed that you could only have muesli if the person who knew how to make was actually awake (and not hungover, as we were told by their colleague). So we had some tea, instead.
The one place we managed to find that always brought us what we'd ordered and who made a pretty decent job of making it taste good was Hot Rock. We ended up going there so often over the last couple of days that this morning, as we walked out of our guest-house (just opposite), the owners gave us a little wave. And we waved back. (T)
