Arts

Take a foodie stroll along Green Path

By Ruqyyaha Deane

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Strolling down Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha ( Green Path), Colombo 3, your eyes are bound to be drawn to the interesting new restaurants that have popped up down the road. If your eyes don’t latch on, there’s a high chance your nose will.

Flavourful chocolate smoothie

Cafe Nuga which opened in March, is the new face on the healthy eating game and we got to try out a variety of dishes from their menu that caters to diverse tastes with their options of hoppers, smoothie bowls, salads and much more.

Cafe Nuga offers you food that is healthy but with a touch of home. “We want affordable, healthy homemade food that we can provide to our customers,” co-owners Sashika Gunatilleke and Dushan Vas tell us.

Their menu reflects their thinking. The sesame seed-crusted salmon panini (Rs. 980) is a generous portion of salmon fillet on a whole-wheat hamburger panini dressed with baby spinach, yoghurt and accompanied with sweet potato chips. The salmon melted in the mouth and the yoghurt gave a nice tangy contrast to the fillet.

The mixed grill platter (Rs. 1580) with its mutton meatballs, chicken thigh, seer slice, prawns, calamari definitely is the dish for meat-lowvers. All the proteins were grilled just right to be succulently juicy and the sauce brought to the table added a lot of flavour to the dish.

For the more Lankan food lovers, the spicy chicken hopper dish which includes two plain hoppers, Pol sambol or lunu miris with dhal curry and the spicy mutton with roast paan from Cafe Nuga’s breakfast menu is a definite must have. A personal favourite the melt in the mouth mutton curry served with fresh, homemade roast paan with garlic parsley butter was something that we found difficult to stop eating.

We tried out the Nuga Siyambala (Rs. 450) juice which is a mix of tamarind and raw honey as well as the chocolate smoothie (Rs. 530) that is made with chocolate powder, peanut butter, banana and milk. The Nuga Siyambala is something different, a welcome experience to us and the chocolate smoothie had a more wholesome flavour compared to the usual chocolate ice-cream ‘smoothies’ that one usually encounters.

Isso co-founder Apinash Sivagumaaran

Sashika Gunatilleke and Dushan Vas of Cafe Nuga

Cafe Nuga also offers their famous smoothie bowls that can be adapted to be made with either cow’s milk, almond milk or soy milk (prices vary), open sandwiches , salads,pasta dishes as well as wraps.

Another restaurant on the block is fast becoming a household name around Colombo and that is the franchise ‘ISSO.’ Opening their flagship outlet at Kollupitiya on September 7, ISSO has become well-known for their gourmet seafood that is affordable. With their second branch, co-founder Apinash Sivagumaaran says, “What we have additionally compared to the Sulaiman Terrace outlet are the specials and the kids meals which we never had over there.” Strongly believing in providing the best value for money the menu has expanded to offer dishes such as lobster macaroni, Catalan shrimp stew and more interesting new dishes.

The first step to ordering your dish is to choose your base and then how you like it cooked and finally choose the carb you want to eat it with. Thus we ordered the lobster tail with egg fried rice cooked in the style of the local favourite (Rs. 2990) and you couldn’t help but savour the feeling of lobster on your tongue. The jumbo prawns with roast garlic paan cooked with a northern twist (Rs. 1890) was quite spicy and not for the faint-hearted, but we thoroughly enjoyed the burning aftertaste of the Jaffna curry. The fish and chips (Rs.1490) that was accompanied with tartar sauce and the renowned sweet potato fries is also a good choice.

ISSO also offers vegetarian options such as the mushroom trio that has shitake,abalone and button mushrooms. Interesting specials also allow everyone the option to have something different for themselves.

We also tried their isso vade with coconut chutney (Rs.290) and the batter fried isso (Rs. 290) for starters but their spring rolls will always remain as our go-to starter at ISSO.

Cafe Nuga and ISSO are must-try options for anyone finding themselves in the area. The ambience and atmosphere at the restaurants are comfortable and welcoming, perfect for either a quick lunch or a casual meeting with friends.