Eat your way around the world
What are you in the mood to eat today? Vietnamese wonton noodle soup, a calzone or Chinese hot and sour prawns? Or perhaps sashimi, baba ghanoush or a hearty German breakfast?
Or have you started dieting again and need to keep a firm eye on your calorie count? If that’s the case, pick up a Greek salad. And maybe, just maybe, a New York cheese cake as a treat (we won’t tell anyone. We promise).
What’s notable about this week’s Eat Street is that you can effortlessly eat your way around the world with ease.Regardless of your food preferences and cuisine, Thimbirigasyaya Road has your epicurean needs covered.
At our last count the area had nearly 20 food outlets –this is with the exception of small streetside food outlets. So this isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, merely a prelude of what the road has to offer and a glimpse of some of the people behind its food scene.
Domenico’s: Mission to deliver pizzas to every wallet
When Domenico Capodiferro was 14, he befriended the pizza maker who managed the restaurant his mother and sister worked in.
Initially working odd jobs at the restaurant located in his hometown in the south of Italy, he coaxed the pizza-maker into teaching him the nuances of pizza making.
He went on to gain a few more years of restaurant expertise and then decided it was time for new experiences.
Now in Colombo, Domenico mans ‘Domenico’s’ which he runs with Ruwi Gunatilaka and her husband, Chris. “Every day, our mission is to deliver to every wallet and every palate,” explains Ruwi.
The restaurant is compact and basic – it can get a little hot because of the pizza oven – and its strength lies in its food.
Domenico draws on the experience of his formative years to dish out authentic Italian fare and serve up interesting pizza combinations, pastas, spaghetti and calzones.
A chance remark by Chris on the versatility of polos resulted in one of the restaurant’s most popular pizzas – a margherita pizza topped with curried polos.
Other interesting pizza combinations include Popeye’s Dream (Mozzarella, spinach, mushroom and white cream), seafood marinara, smoked salmon and the seven deadly sins range made with imported Italian meats.
The restaurant’s rich, velvety mousse is also worth a mention and if you’re in the mood to be surprised, ask for the Chef’s Fantasy where Domenico whips up a special pizza off the menu based on your likes and dislikes.
Skrumptious: Brownie paradise
Further down the road, Nilusha de Silva has one aim for her dessert cafe: when a person thinks of brownies, she’d like Skrumptious brownies to be the first thing on their mind.
Skrumptious CEO, Nilusha brings a little more than chocolate, butter and sugar to the brownie business batter. A business analyst and software engineer, Nilusha’s persistent focus on blending business with baking has paid off for the company.
Enthusiastic about the idea of owning her own business ever since she was young she explains that the core brownie recipe was a result of a serendipitous baking failure in the kitchen after six months of careful experimentation.
Skrumptious applies stringent processes to every single product on the menu, to make sure that the process is locked down to achieve speed, cost, quality and flexibility.
The menu is also tightly focused to keep a strict eye on the process and quality of the desserts Skrumptious offers.
The Skrumptious dessert bar is now one year and three months old and churns out variations on its thick, dense, rich brownies and offers chocolate-centric desserts such as chocolate biscuit pudding and mousse.
There’s a delicious cream cheese brownie which is notable while the café also offers oreo, dark and white chocolate, peanut butter, orange and mint brownies and chocolate blended drinks.
The Bread Company: The early bird gets oven fresh bread.
Pix by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
This week, The Bread Company is about to begin the prep for their German Christmas Stollen so that when Christmas arrives, the loaves – packed with nuts, raisins and candied fruit -have ripened and mellowed and are ready to be eaten.
Run by Prashan and Madeleine, the Bread Company’s operations are small and they prefer it that way in order to ensure quality while offering a hands-on, personalized service.
Drawing on Madeleine’s knowledge of baking, The Bread Company stays true to its core product.
There’s a range of bread based products on offer from the German Black bread (a dark, dense bread wholly made with rye) and rye bread toasted with nuts to a lighter sundried tomato and herb studded Mediterranean bread.
Every morning, batches of freshly baked bread are available at dawn for early risers who stop to pick up their loaves before The Bread Company officially opens at 7 a.m., from Tuesday to Sunday.
Operating a deli, the duo also serve up a German styled breakfast platter, a range of sandwiches with homemade cured, smoked and roasted meats (the meats are also available on sale) and hotdogs (curry ketchup, honey mustard, onion relish and homemade sausages nestled in a butter bun).
Their cinnamon buns are a fast moving favourite and are made in small batches along with homemade granola, pretzels made to order and homemade jams. “Everything’s based on simplicity,” explains Prashan, eschewing artificial preservatives and any unnecessary frills or fanfare in presentation.
The Cakery: A sweet offering on the cards
Take a detour from Thimbirigasyaya Road and head to Jawatte Road where The English Cake Company (known as The Cakery) is busy whipping up a storm.
An offshoot of The Good Market, The Cakery has made a name for churning out fresh, high quality baked goods with no artificial preservatives since December 2012.
From profiteroles and squidgy beetroot and chocolate cake to the cookie monster and courgette cake – The Cakery’s sweet offerings are vast.Run by Yohan and Elinor Galapitage, the Cakery draws on Elinor’s family recipes for inspiration and constantly innovates.
Last week a salted caramel and strawberry concoction was up for free sampling and feedback from customers popping in and out of their busy outlet – everything is always put up for a taste test before it secures a place on the menu.
With Christmas around the corner, they’re also readying for the holiday bustle and drawing up the menu with seasonal favourites such as Christmas pudding, gingerbread biscuits, Meringue snowmen and Breudher.
Yohan is excited about The Cakery’s upcoming plans. As parents, both Elinor and he realised that apart from fast food restaurants, there are very few family friendly places in Colombo where parents can relax and enjoy good food while the children are entertained.
The Cakery’s plans for expansion within their current location include a bigger café and restaurant (they’ve partnered with Soul Coffee – an ethical and sustainable coffee brand), an ice cream parlour selling more varieties of their homemade ice cream, a sandwich station, a range of homemade breads, a reading room for people who would like a quick read while enjoying their cakes as well as play areas and activities for children.
Giovanni’s : Popular pizza pit stop topped with a quirky ambience
It’s early in the evening but already Giovanni’s is filling up. Two tourists are languidly draped over the board which demarcates the restaurant from the pavement, awaiting their order and the seating area upstairs is almost full.
Giovanni’s charm lies in its effortless quirky and off-the-cuff dining ambience. The menu is written on twin strips of blackboard while Italian themed posters, monochrome prints of vintage cityscapes in Italy, red checked tablecloths and low seating complete the interiors upstairs.
A glance upwards reveals Italian graffiti on the ceiling which contrasts with a gold ornate mirror – it’s mismatched but it works. Our conversation with Dimuthu Gamage, proprietor of Giovanni’s is punctuated by phone calls with orders.
“I love baking pizzas,” he smiles, “It’s a passion.” Every morning, Dimuthu heads to the market to pick up fresh produce, receives the daily dispatch of cheese from Nuwara Eliya and comes by in the evening to open the pizza parlour.
His favourite part of the entire process is the careful rolling of the pizza dough before it is laden with toppings.
Having experience in pizza parlours in Colombo and in sync with the food favourites of pizza lovers, Dimuthu’s Giovanni’s is a popular pizza pit stop and has a steady stream of regulars.
Lately, Dimuthu has been toying with the idea of introducing Pizza al Taglio to Giovannni’s. A speedy snacking option, with an emphasis on taste and convenience, Pizza al Taglioa is a popular concept in Europe and is one large block of pizza baked in advance with varying flavours and toppings.
Customers can come in, choose their slices and sizes and head out without waiting.
Thimbirigasyaya’s most unpretentious coffee shop is also perhaps its most famous one, earning a mention in the New York Times in 2013.
Located on Fife Road, Hansa Coffee’s cosy outlet is four years old while the company itself has 18 years of experience in processing, roasting and exporting Sri Lanka based coffee.
The café is warm, inviting and intimate and offers a welcome counterpoint to the plush ambience and steep prices of other coffee shops which dot Colombo.
Shani Hulugalle, who runs Hansa coffee with husband, Lawrence, explains that Hansa Coffee’s commitment to buying from small farmers, carefully processing and discarding of every dirty bean are all essential ingredients to the final brew which is served up.
Hansa offers blends such as Espresso, a rich Arabica, house blend, a medium roasted gold blend and a pure Arabica. Hansa’s recent food foray is chocolate and they offer dark chocolate using Sri Lankan cocoa beans, made with brown sugar or jaggery.
With 50% to 100% chocolate blends, Hansa’s chocolate is stoneground, offering a rough and rustic, nutty texture compared to its smoother, creamier retail counterparts.
The outlet was initially opened as a promotional outlet to sell coffee but now serves up chocolate and coffee based drinks and a simple selection of sweets and savouries to complement its beverages.
Shani regularly infuses Sri Lankan spices such as cinnamon, cardamom and ginger into the beverages and is currently contemplating nutmeg spiced drinks for the season. Despite its popularity, the coffee shop has no plans to expand for now.
A bigger place equates higher rent and higher prices and the folks at Hansa want to retain its affordability. “I want local people to be able to afford Sri Lankan things – good things. That’s one of my aims,” concludes Shani.