Touching foreign taste buds with Sri Lankan flavours

Amalshan Gunerathne

Not everyone has the flair to craft cuisines that are as pleasing to the palate as to the eyes. They turn routine cooking into an artistic, creative adventure. For that we called it the ‘Culinary Art’. They experiment and discover new ways to create food varieties.

Very much suited to his artistic skills, he goes by the name of ‘Chef Kala’. He has come a long way since starting his culinary adventures as way back as 1986 as a training cook. Now, the Executive Chef of Jetwing Beach Negembo, Kalayanapriya Wickramasinghe passionately believes that we should take our own unique food flavours to the world. “Foreigners don’t mind little bit of spice these days, we can take away 50 percent of spice from the food and serve them,” he says.

Chef Kala joins with ZEST to share his interesting thoughts on how we should feed the foreign guests with a sense of exclusivity that only Sri Lanka alone can offer.

Q. What unique experiences can guests expect from ‘Jetwing Beach’?

A. We always look forward to experiment with news things and we always try to expand on our food varieties. We are not afraid to introduce new food varieties. We have four special theme nights. The theme nights include a Mongolian Barbecue, Sunday Buffet, Monday ‘Net’ and Wednesday ‘Go Sri Lankan buffet’. During theme nights, all action takes place live.

Q. How does the live action take place?

A. In Mongolian Barbecue, we have twelve action counters. We give them a special experience called Pork Dum Massa. The slicing of the pork and smoking are all done right in-front of the guest. The counters cater food varieties from about five countries. There are meet items and vegetable items. We make cuisines according to the guest’s wishes.

Q. Tell us a bit more about the Pork Dummassa

A. It is something that our ancestors used to practice. We unearthed it from a village called Gurubbauluvila, Kegalle. Sometimes, we conduct such expeditions to learn about our local culinary art. We always look forward to discover new food varieties. We learn about them and try to develop them in to something unique.

Q. How is the foreign response to Sri Lankan food varieties?

A. Foreigners do like Sri Lankan food varieties. They don’t mind little bit of spice. Mostly we cut down 50 percent of spice from the food and serve them. We believe that we should take our own food varieties to the world. There is a good demand for seafood curries. Most times we take fresh sea food and do those cuisines.

Q. How do “Sunday Buffet” and “Monday Net” take place?

A. The Sunday buffet consists with Japanese, Thai, Singapore, Vietnam, Maldivian cuisines. The challenge is to make a very appealing presentation and cater according to the varied tastes of the guests. The ‘Monday Net’ is basically about fresh sea food. Recently we did a raw marinating: we took fresh seer fish, fresh tuna and octopus and marinated them. Then we prepared it and served it live to the guests.

Q. What are the sea food cuisines that have a good demand?

A. There is a special sea food cuisine called Mee pura issan hindala. It is made from dried prawns. Then there is Black Pepper crab curry which is made from live, fresh crabs.

Q. How far has Jetwing Beach come since it was first opened to the public?

A. We have come a long way since we opened the hotel. There was a major rise in the tourism sector the last couple of years and that helped us to leap giant strides in the industry. Our performances were really good in the recently held culinary arts competition. From 62 participants, 49 of them were able to walk away with medals. The awards included two Gold Excellence medals and 12 Gold Medals. The rest are bronze and silver. We won the Best Hotel award for the Negembo region and the fourth position from the island overall.

Q. The tourist industry is on the rise, do you think that we have a good education system that would draw young individuals to the industry?

A. The tourist industry is a good place to make a career. These days we have hotel schools all over the island. But they offer only four to six months diplomas and I don’t think that is good enough. You have to study about it for four years at the Hotel School.

Q. Do you think that our standard is low?

A. I don’t think that our standard is low. In-fact I believe that the standard is very high. But young people have to be armed with necessary practical knowledge. The best way would be to work as an apprentice and gain practical experience. If not you can even join as a kitchen assistance and gain that practical knowledge. From then onwards it all depends on your dedication and commitment.

Q. Sometimes talented chefs leave the country, could you express your thoughts on that dilemma?

A. That is very true. Many talented chefs leave the country when they get better job offers from other countries. In a sense it is a great shame. We lose great potential. It is mainly because of the salary scale. The salary scale is bit low and when they get better offers from other countries, they leave.