Video
$50 Sri Lankan Beef Wellington 🇱🇰
· 34 min · Watch on YouTube
$50 Sri Lankan Beef Wellington 🇱🇰
A second day in Colombo with Ali, which is really two things: a stupa climbed at sunset for the view over the whole city, and the best meal of the trip.
Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles. Harry gives the sunglasses seller an on-camera plug with directions to his stall, so that stall is not named here. The restaurant is named: no link, no code, nothing given, and he paid the bill and tipped on top.
Sunglasses, again
Replacing the pair the sea took two days earlier. A street seller with, in Harry’s words, more energy than anyone should have that early: asked 5,000, dropped to a stated “Sri Lanka price” of 2,000, sold at 1,800 — about $9. Counterfeit and better made than the $3 pair. He puts the price to the comments rather than claiming he did well.
The stupa, and the view
A very large Buddhist stupa in the port area, climbed at sunset. The gate is locked and they are told they may go over it, and told firmly not to cross a particular bridge at the top.
From the top, effectively the whole city: the coastline, the container port, the naval and fishing harbours, the central business district and its tower, construction, and — visible in the distance — the Red Mosque he was at the day before.
Two asides from up there:
- He likes ports, and says why: on his figure, 70–80% of what we consume arrives by cargo ship (from video – unverified).
- Ali is afraid of heights and is up it anyway; Harry notes the group has spent the trip pushing him into exactly this.
And the tip he states from the top, which is the useful part of the video: arriving in a city you know nothing about, do one of two things — walk it, or find a tuk-tuk driver and let him take you round. He had done no research on Colombo at all, and after one day of the second option feels he knows it. See walk the city.
The bread man
A snack van that plays a loud tune as it goes so you know to flag it down. A doughnut costs 100 rupees. Harry notes on camera that he isn’t supposed to buy street food, buys it anyway, and reports it as very sweet and very good.
Dinner
By 8pm he has eaten one apple all day — filming, then working — and says he and Ali have accidentally fasted.
The restaurant is a fusion place whose premise is European technique with Sri Lankan spicing, and Harry lets the staff order for him.
Starters
- Kochchi chicken skewers — chicken thigh marinated in Sri Lankan green chilli, which he compares to a nutty satay.
- Devilled chicken, crisp-fried in a sweet-and-sour-style spiced sauce, and hotter than the skewers. He rates it the best chicken he has had in the country.
- Served with a very thin oily flatbread, a curry sauce, pickled onion and carrot, and something green he takes for horseradish or wasabi.
Mains
- The beef Wellington, and the construction is the point: beef loin cooked in a traditional Sri Lankan beef curry, mushroom with sweet Sri Lankan spices, wrapped in puff pastry and baked. Served with a black beef curry sauce, tempered potatoes and long beans. His description of eating it: it starts as an ordinary beef Wellington and then the curry arrives underneath it.
- A slider with brinjal moju — aubergine — and cheddar.
Dessert: baked curd, which he had never met. Buffalo-milk curd with condensed milk and fresh cream, oven-steamed, served with kithul palm treacle and nougat. He compares the texture to a firm jelly and the taste to tiramisu.
About 10,000 rupees — just over $50 — for two starters, two mains, four drinks and a dessert, plus a tip. He calls it not cheap, entirely fair for the quality and the district, and rates the food 9 out of 10, noting he doesn’t give tens.
Where arrack comes from
The most substantial thing anyone tells him in Colombo, from the restaurant:
- Sap is tapped from the kithul palm — a relative of the coconut palm.
- Reduced, it is the treacle served with the dessert.
- Fermented, it is toddy, an alcoholic drink of 4–6%.
- Distilled, toddy becomes arrack.
- The same process runs across the tropical palm-growing countries — Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Java are the ones named.
Key moments
[02:53]1,800 for the sunglasses.[06:57]The bread man, and a 100-rupee doughnut.[08:31]The climb begins.[10:32]Panoramic Colombo, and the argument for ports.[12:03]Walk it, or find a tuk-tuk: his rule for a new city.[13:35]One apple, at eight o’clock.[17:12]The two starters.[22:49]The Wellington explained by the person who made it.[28:32]Baked curd, kithul treacle.[31:14]Sap to toddy to arrack.[32:47]Just over 10,000 rupees, and 9 out of 10.