I’ve had great food in Sri Lanka, often in places without electricity or discernable civilization. Once you get table linen and menus, however, things go bad. Sri Lankan cuisine hasn’t really gone upscale. It just gets less good and the service gets more surly. They’ve figured out that you can charge more and that these menus and credit card machines are required, but the food hasn’t kept pace.
It is very difficult to get good Sri Lankan food in a restaurant setting. In a kade, for sure, off a banana leaf, yes, but in a restaurant restaurant? Not really. The one exception in my memory was Peninsula, the Jaffna restaurant where the Nawala Machang is now, but that’s shut down. Raja Bojun? No. That place under Renuka, decent dhose, but not really. Nuga Gama, the fake village in Cinnamon Grand? I don’t know, but the construction of a faux village in a five star hotel is just too much for me. I just can’t do it.
Instead you get the best food at kades or at places like Dunhinda in Athurigiriya. The problem is that these places are generally unfindable by people like tourists, and they are generally more male and a bit less comfortable than a restaurant setting. I mean, you’re wiping your hands with newspaper and sitting with random people. I like it, but there are certain situations where that’s not ideal.
There is, however, one exception. Ministry Of Crab. It’s not a rice and curry place at all, but they still do food that’s uniquely Sri Lankan (as exported to Singapore) – pepper crab, chicken curry, prawn curry, etc. The kicker is that they serve roast paan and pol sambol. It takes the best of local food and tweaks it just the right amount, the amount to be tastier and more interesting, not a random amount to just seem more posh. In terms of crab, they simply upped the quality and size of the ingredients, they didn’t go for any fusion to cover up. They just made the raw ingredients better. One of the best dishes, the butter crab is essentially just crab. You have butter on the side if you want, but I found myself not using it. Where recipes are tweaked, it is in the spirit and essence of the generations of tradition that made, say, chicken curry great in the first place.
Savan went there last week and wrote a review for YAMU, calling MoC “the best restaurant in Sri Lanka”. I’ve reviewed it before and I generally agree.
What’s remarkable is first, a high-end restaurant thought to offer a dish as humble as the ubiquitous pol sambol, and second, it was the best pol sambol I have ever tasted. Somewhat firm pieces of coconut with the crunch of maldive fish, a dose of citrus and a real chilli kick.
And how does a great pol sambol make this the best restaurant in Colombo?
Because that really cuts to the heart of what sets MOC apart– it uses the best local ingredients to create a unique restaurant experience.
This isn’t a second rate imitation of a French or Italian dish the chef learned at hotel school or the owner happened to enjoy while travelling – these are dishes that have no better iterations anywhere else in the world. This is the only place on earth I can eat export quality Sri Lankan crabs fresh from the ocean, and it’s the only place I can eat them with hunks of local bread and excellent pol sambol.
It’s an inimitable experience and the best of the rest of Colombo’s dining – Spoons, Chesa Swiss, Paradise Road, London Grill – offer, at best, only good imitations. Lovely though they can be- chocolate nemesis (Paradise Road), steak (London Grill) or a bit of molecular gastronomy (Spoons) can be had better in other parts of the world. The combinations available at MOC though, while drawing inspiration from everywhere, take full advantage of Sri Lanka which is why this restaurant fills me with hope for the country’s culinary future in a way that nowhere else quite does. (YAMU)
What I generally agree with is the general rationale. Personally, I’ve gotten crazy food highs at MoC. It is expensive (not by western standards, but by local) so I usually go when friends from abroad are in town. They’ve all loved it. In that sense, I am very proud of MoC, because these people would have had great Japanese or Swiss or other dishes that Sri Lankan restaurants can do well, but they would have never had an experience like MoC. So yeah, I’m happy to say Ministry Of Crab is the best restaurant in Sri Lanka, and I hope that Dharshan and more like him continue to push Sri Lankan cuisine higher.
I hear what you say about Nuga gama but the food there is really authentic. I loved it.
I must go. BUT I have heard their prices do not justify the food. I guess I’ll make my own decision on that when I do go. I’m still a bit sceptical – if you want authentic go authentic, newspaper napkins included. That’s Sri Lanka. The MOC targets the top end of Colombo society only and surely that is a shame.
The MOC targets the top end of Colombo society only and surely that is a shame.
Why?
A number of people have been food poisoned after eating there over the past 2/3 weeks!
Dunhinda in Attidiya you mean?
I think Savan’s point is the best: that of all the restaurants in Colombo, most (if not all) can be bettered elsewhere worldwide within the genre, but MOC takes some beating.
That said, it’s a very cheap to run, long-tables-shared-seating affair that may not be to everyone’s taste. When I went they couldn’t offer a side order of bread and the service wasn’t up to the prices. But the crab was good, which is the reason I went there.
The crab dish that we ate was not very Sri lankan. I like the local crab curry with”murunga kola” & was not in the menu. I did not find “Ros pan” or polsambol in the menu. we went there in December 2011 and I wonder these are recent additions to the menu. The price was 10star!( 2 X 5 star).
I have to wonder if people really don’t like these ‘posh’ establishments or whether they just hate the fact that it’s so expensive. Sri Lankan restaurants like MoC may not be perfect, but they are still quite value for money when you consider how much upper class establishments cost in other countries.
I keep hearing people complaining about malupaan in BreadTalk being very expensive. The problem with this observation is that you’re not supposed to be going to BreadTalk to eat malupaan. You should go there to try other things that you don’t find in your local bakery. Like the fire floss buns, cream buns. It’s a different flavour made for special occasions, not necessarily for everyday consumption.
TL;DR So please stop comparing the more upper class establishments to ordinary bath kades and bakeries. These fancy places are for fancy food, and obviously it’s going to be expensive. If you don’t want fancy food, don’t go there.
Mind you, prices here are still cheaper than in other countries, and the food isn’t bad at all.
Be very careful when eating local freshwater fish dishes.
Some fish like “korali”, “batta/batto”, “hunga” can live in absolutely polluted environment such as bere lake and other other waterways in Colombo. Some fish actually thrive on those places. And people do fish on those places.
But some like “loola (snake head fish)” can’t live on those places.
2 large crabs, 6 prawns, pol sambol, bread(not free) & iced teas =14’000lkr / 110usd = happy customer = empty wallet. But better I spend my money to feed myself than watch johnston spend my tax money on a party of 10 that night.