Hopper Night celebrates local flavours

Sri Lankan cuisine, with its exhilaratingly spicy tones encompasses a broad range of flavours and textures. Sri Lanka has been renowned for its spices since traders from across the world arrived in the 15th and 16th Centuries, bringing their native cuisines to the island, resulting in a rich diversity of cooking styles and techniques.

Every month, Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo hosts a night of authentic Sri Lankan food. The light and crispy Hopper is the focus with many variations being created by the hotel's kitchen brigade. The next Hopper Night will take place on March 9 at the Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo Terrace by the pool and Beira Lake.

The wafer thin, bowl shaped hopper is made from fermented batter of rice flour, coconut milk and a dash of yeast. Whilst it's soft and spongy at the centre it is delightfully light and crispy on the edges. This allows the chefs at Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo to dream up creative variations where a filling is added while the hopper cooks. The hoppers are unique as they are appetizing with variations such as cheese and chili hoppers, seeni sambol hoppers, kiri appa, pani pol hoppers, masala hoppers and of course the popular egg hopper.

Although the night is dedicated to hoppers, it offers a spread of almost every popular Sri Lankan specialty. The specialties include pittu complemented by tripe curry locally referred to as babath, string hoppers, kotthu rotti, chicken curry, crispy cuttlefish, beef curry, fish ambulthiyal - a sour smoked preparation of fish, potatoes curried in a thick coconut gravy and many other dishes.

After an invigoratingly spicy meal, the hotel offers guests an array of local sweetmeats to recover. They come in all shapes, sizes, colours and textures from lavariya, dodol.