Vegetarians until recently were consigned to culinary pariah-hood with restaurateurs reeling with revulsion if asked, “Have you a vegetarian option?” Then vegetarianism surged because it was healthier, slimmer, greener, cheaper (post-recession), trendier or simply because Madonna and Paul McCartney are vegetarians.
Vegetarianism is no longer risible. Indeed, it’s serious business.
Governor’s Restaurant (Mount Lavinia Hotel): If 7-course vegetarian menus have appeared at every London Michelin-starred restaurant then all-veggie or mostly veggie buffets are fashionable in Colombo. Religious, ethical and economic considerations apart, one might well discover vegetarian cuisine is actually tastier. Try the vegetarian Poya Buffet MLH launched to commemorate 2600 years of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. I am persuaded that no other vegetarian buffet in Colombo can vie with the sheer enormity, variety and indeed quality of this one.
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| Inviting veg options from the Mount and below, Coco Veranda’sdelicious burger |
Traverse an array of gleaming, glistening salads including international classics and more unusual spinach or carrot timbale, Sri Lankan style roasted brinjal with grilled apple, roasted pumpkin, sweet potato, pumpkin etc. Discover healthy soups like mixed herbs or curry leaves which are a prelude to somewhat less healthy fried wadais, tempura and spring rolls, cheesy lasagne and pasta in sumptuous cream, au gratins and pies, kottu rotis and naans all made at live stations. One may opt for lighter dosas, mushroom sautés or tofu steaks.
However, it is the pageant of Sri Lankan dishes that arrests. A medley of mellums may include mukunnuwenna, gotukola and the extraordinary kathurumurunga, all delicately prepared and mercifully not snowed in under an avalanche of grated coconut. I am fed up of those listless vegetables wallowing in miry marinades you find on many 5 Star buffets. Therefore, the fresh, firm veggies here do delight. You have had dhal and kiri ala curry everywhere around Colombo, but at MLH you realise that there is dhal and there is dhal, whilst the texture of the potato is ineffably superb- you must try it to know.
 Precision and attention to detail are obvious in the balanced flavours and excruciatingly excellent textures of jak seed & baby brinjal, breadfruit & spinach, winged beans or tempered manioc. I ask young chef Indika if they have directed the slow food technique MLH is synonymous with to Sri Lankan cuisine and he reveals that technique is paramount in their cooking. Chefs abroad declare vegetarian cooking more challenging for it tests the chef’s skill and the quality of ingredients played with because you cannot disguise veggies in inundations of some glamorous sauce, as with meat. In Colombo, many chefs seem to believe that you can douse vegetables in oil, throw in some spices and call it a curry. Oil on my plate is a no-no, the horror of which one is spared at MLH. Indeed, Chef Indika states categorically that he has instructed his chefs against oil and coconut milk baths. Consequently, curries on this buffet don’t groan under lardy layers. Further, desserts aren’t lumps of concentrated sugar.
Expect delicious service: Manager Shamal and his team, like the waves beating the beach below the charming restaurant terraces, foam around you when required, receding discreetly when they have served their purpose. Shamal strenuously recommends their zingy ice-slushed fresh lime and ginger and lime and mint drinks. These citrus sensations apparently help cut fat and enable you to eat more. But remember that going green is not a green light for gluttony- we have seen what it does to elephants...
Dining Room (Cinnamon Lakeside): There was a clamour in Colombo’s most chic coffee shop- an overwhelming demand for more vegetarian items on one of the city’s most accessibly priced and immensely popular home-away-from-home international cuisine buffets. Therefore, a “Veggie Patch” of about six vegetarian options including Lankan, Indian, oriental and continental dishes was introduced. But it transpired that diners preferred looking at resplendently coloured vegetarian dishes than actually eating them. Now the concentration comprising the “Veggie Patch” is interspersed amidst meat dishes. But the veggie dishes persist. For a staff member explains you cannot afford to ignore a wealth of vegetarian Indians. Indeed, if European Michelin-starred restaurants have exhibited such an enthusiasm for vegetarian menus then it’s because 40% of their clientele is Indian, as apparently now only they can afford inflated gourmet prices...
Coco Veranda: “Mock Duck” (Peking Duck re-incarnated in a vegetarian tofu avatar) became a worldwide rage. Then, London’s Michelin-starred Kai presented traditional meat dishes made with soya, tofu, tempey etc. In Colombo, Coco Veranda’s owner Sarath Sathiamoorthy innovated the (unprecedented in my travels) paneer burger and chilli paneer hot dog using paneer fresh from his farms. Think succulent chunks of paneer whose crispy exteriors enclose silken centres with an exquisitely distinctive flavour. Nowhere else in Colombo is such beautiful paneer. And here is an ultra light burger refreshingly different in a rich spiced puree sans cheese or mayo.
I ask Sarath about the inspiration behind the originality and he says simply that he is himself a vegetarian and so needed to conceive something vegetarian. Sarath’s unique creations lure vegetarians and devotees visiting the nearby Sai Baba centre. We hear a spiritual session in Colombo 7 ends in grand style at CV! Ethical epicureanism, indeed…
Commons: Kishani, who masterminds the menu, is another vegetarian with imagination. If vegetarian burgers were once a contradiction in terms and appeared cursorily and grudgingly on the menu, then Commons launched a new burger menu where three of the twenty options are vegetarian. The feta and spinach burger is a revelation. If you anticipated Greek salad sandwiched between two chunks of bread you’ll be astonished by the most gorgeously prepared spinach and feta patty. Possibly the best burger of my experience and available in healthy brown bread.
Paneer has permeated Commons too, here moulded into a substantial patty sitting inside the paneer burger or stretched into a paneer sausage laid inside a hot dog bun. Indulgent vegetarians like the towering veg burger whose patty can be somewhat sweet and maudlin in mayo, but that’s precisely what makes it a hit! |
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