Archive | April, 2005

So some people say..

Let’s me give you some more lowdown on Sri Lanka, those of you from Malaysia I’m sure you’re aware most of the crabs we eat there are actually Sri Lankan. Cheap and tasty, so where better to gorge yourself on seafood than the home of said crabs.

So the weekend arrives, the guy here asks me what I want to eat…I’m like CRABS!! BRING IT ON..

So he asked around and took us to a place that he himself hadn’t been before, but almost everyone else in the office recommended…you even had to book a reservation to ensure your place.

The internationally renowned Beach Wadiya

And the entrance..

Yes you see correctly, you have to walk across a railway track to get there..

A quaint little place, some 30 years old…unfortunately it was almost completely washed away during the December Tsunami[/url]..

Source: Sunday Observer

The Wadiya is an unpretentious sea-food joint off a virgin beach along Galle Face that has won international renown, if the newspaper write-ups and photo albums (which the owner produces voluntarily) is any indication. The acclaim is merited too: the food is ‘simply superb’ to use a Richie Benaud euphemism. “I am the most ‘unprogressive’ restaurateur,” says the owner, “this is the only branch even 30 years after inception.” And thank god for that. Sometimes smallness is a virtue.

Source: India Times

They serve seafood and alchohol, and they are on a beach?

What more can you ask for?

Unfortunately my colleague is not to fond of seafood, even at a place visited by Princess Anne and Richard Branson? Oh well, he ordered chicken…Just a tip, don’t order chicken.

I think they probably didn’t have any and had to go and buy some or they caught the chicken in the woods or something as the chicken came when we’d almost finished our huge plates of devilled crab, baked crabs, garlic praws, veges and rice.

It is a place to relax though, once a table is readied on the evening, it’s not readied for a second sitting, there’s no rush, no clearing, no expectation for you to leave.

You can just sit there all night and listen to the waves..

I must visit there again…maybe a couple of times before I leave.

The baked crab is said to be the best in Sri Lanka….being the home of crab, that’s a pretty high accolade. Who am I to argue, crab with no shells…that’s already a bonus, but it was fantastic.

The devilled crab would be more inline with what we are used to back in Malaysia, but man it was good…I think it had just walked out of the ocean 5 minutes before.

The sauce infiltrated every corner, devilled anything is available in Sri Lanka, is some kinda of spicy tangy style that goes well with pretty much everything.

One thing I did notice (Apart from the incredible freshness) was the fact even though the crabs were smaller than what we get in Malaysia, they were a lot more flesh and a lot less other stuff, the claws were small, but the bodies had less of that horrible white partition stuff and just loads of succulent tender devilled meat!

To ‘devil’ something, the ingredients go a bit like this:

Had some very fresh prawns too..

Along with some kankun (Guess what that is?) and some rice, which was damn good too..

Once again, please don’t order the chicken! Staff are slow at the best of times, order your drinks well before you need them..if you’re lucky they might come, at some stage, initial food delivery is fast though.

All washed down with some *excellent* local malt beer, 3 Coins:

Leaving the all too familiar aftermath as so…

It was a beautiful experience, there are few things in life more relaxing than the sounds of waves and the smell of fresh ocean air coupled with the fragrance of fresh seafood accompanied by great beer…

It’s definately a romantic and tranquil place to dine.

You’re literally a few steps from the water facing the beach.

There was a harrowing reminder on one of the doors above 5 feet up, a tide mark…and a label saying “Water level, December 26th during Tsunami”. The place was virtually destroyed and they are just getting back on their feet now. I am glad they are as it was good, I shall try and make it back in the daytime.

The hotel I’m in is very near the beach, but unfortunately there’s nothing else much around in the way of resturants or shops, as it’s the financial district.

I went for a walk along the beach yesterday, but I got tired of getting hassled by taxi drivers after 5 minutes so I just sat on a cannon for a while and took in the sea.

What did I do the whole weekend? Watched B-grade movies on CableTV, ordered room service and slept.

IT WAS HEAVEN.

If anything else significant happens I’ll be sure to post.