Stumbling Onto Something

After a refreshing day of sleep, we awoke around 3 pm with one goal: food! It didn't matter where or what or how much - we were famished. We decided to see where we ended up, which, in truth, ended up being not far from our hotel.

We were a little wary as we were led down a very long black corridor into the very bowels, it seemed, of what we thought was a quaint little open air restaurant. We were shown to our seats in the otherwise empty back rooms, ordered while trying not to shift the wobbly table and chairs too much, and waited somewhat patiently for our food to arrive.

The back of the restaurant was open to a courtyard, and we spent the better part of half an hour admiring the wildlife that flitted past....

a brown headed barbet happily digging for grubs or insects inside a dead stump in the courtyard...

...a fence lizard come to bask in the hot sun atop the wall...

...several Oriental magpie robins happily calling to each other amongst the nearby telephone wires and courtyard trees....

When our meals began to arrive, we thought that this was a simple Sri Lankan restaurant serving simple Sri Lankan fare. Steve had ordered some fish fried rice to baby his stomach, Elanor ordered fish and chips - complete with the ubiquitous curry batter, and me? I ordered what I thought was a simple vegetarian curry. What I actually got what this splendid feast:

Mushroom, raisin, and cashew nut curry, onion and tomato salad, red beet in curry sauce, coconut sambula, red and white rice, and freshly made puppadams! Now, if you read my earlier post about my first experiences with authentic Sri Lankan food, you will remember how much I raved about the Coconut Onion Gravy that I had at the Banana Leaf Restaurant in Washington DC. It was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life. But this? This was a thousand times better! The flavours somehow melded together into perfect bites of creamy goodness, exploding with curry leaf, turmeric, capsicum, thai pepper, and lime, and with the just the right amount of crunch added by the puppadam, used for scooping everything together in lieu of silverware.

After our meal we stopped at the entrance to see the two pools of koi, and this little guy:

Then we headed for the beach directly behind our hotel for a couple of hours of fun to celebrate Valentine's Day, Steve's birthday, and our arrival - finally - in Sri Lanka while taking in our first sunset over the warm Indian Ocean:

Oh, and by the way, what we stumbled upon in our quest for nourishment to appease our famished stomachs? Only one of the best restaurants in Negombo, Lords Restaurant, which, according to Lonely Planet is "By far Negombo’s most creative eating experience". And cost only about the same as a typical fast food meal back home!