While doing some research on top beaches in Sri Lanka, Jungle Beach was mentioned a couple of times as an interesting, slightly off the tourist track, place to explore. What does a beach have to do with the Travel Bites blog...we thought absolutely nothing. We were wrong.
About 3km south of Galle we turned off the Colombo Galle highway and slowly made our way down a very narrow and badly surfaced road. As the road quickly deteriorated into a rocky track we decided to grant our little car and its tyres mercy and abandoned the car to travel on foot. Past a giant white pagoda, down and up a hill and finally down a steep jungle track, we came out to a beach clearing and found Jungle Beach. For what is quite a small, but beautiful beach, completely hidden and more accessible by boat then other forms of transport, we were surprised to find a makeshift seafood restaurant set up ready to tempt with icy cold beers, cocktails and fresh seafood of course. They really did have the market cornered here and could have charged anything but the prices were ok and the location was stunning so we thought "why not?"
We were intrigued by the Jumbo Prawns that looked more like medium sized lobster than prawns, so we opted for two of those bad boys, accompanied by chips and salad. The beer arrived quickly and it's sub zero temperature was appreciated and quite unanticipated given the location! The mojito was sadly disappointing, arriving a good 30 minutes later and containing more undissolved sugar than mint. If only I could bring myself to like beer....
Lunch showed up looking quite impressive. The prawns had been splayed and cooked with liberal doses of garlic, onion and pepper. A nice combination of flavours, but one that did not exactly let the true flavour of the prawns shine through. The salad was simple, yet fresh which provided a nice balance to the grease hit of the prawns and French fries. It was mainly shredded cabbage and carrot with thin strips of pineapple that gave the salad some sweet moisture.
RECOMMENDED
The meal was not cheap. It was not incredible and i certainly would not send someone off into the wild to track down this place for the sake of the food. But given that it was set on an idyllic beach in the middle of nowhere, and that it offered fresh food which was nice enough, I would recommend hunting out the beach and having a beer if nothing else. The food - take it or leave it in my book.
The bill (for 2):
2 x Jumbo prawns served with salad and chips TOTAL: 3000 Rupees (Approx. US$23)
Sri Lanka is a fun place to be at any time of day, but go for a walk at around sunset, and you will get to experience the accidental street festival that is dinner time. Before even stepping foot outside, we could already hear the clanging of the steel scrapers against the cast iron hot plates, as the local favourite 'Kothu Roti' was being prepared by every place serving food along the main road.
Kothu roti is a combination of freshly shredded carrots, cabbage and onions tossed together with torn up pieces of roti bread and a handful of fiery spices. It is Tamil for 'Chopped Roti', for fairly obvious reasons. No romance there.
Other ingredients like chicken, beef or even cheese can be added for extra flavour. Everything is thrown onto a hotplate and fried up, while being chopped and mixed with the large scrapers. The noise made by the scrapers has a musical quality to it, thanks to the the guys behind them using the whole setup like a cross between a barbecue and a set of bongos; banging out a beat using their enormous blunt lumps of steel.
The next thing we noticed was the lighting. All the roadside eateries were lit up with twinkly things pinned up along the fences as if they had put their Christmas decorations out to dry. Every establishment along the busy road was like a beacon, making them easy to spot from a distance. We chose the first one that looked busy and wandered inside.
The Royal Hotel restaurant was not a hotel, and in way was it regal. Inside was a bunch of plastic chairs around plastic tables, with all kinds of greasy bits and pieces being served on plastic plates which had been pre-wrapped in thin plastic bags, with the food served on top of that. The smell was like old burnt grease mixed with the scent of raw onions, coconut and curry powder; So it was making me hungry.
We claimed a table right in the middle of the mess and ordered a chicken curry, one chicken kothu roti, and a couple of egg hoppers. Hoppers are like crepes made from rice flour and coconut milk, cooked in a semi spherical frying pan the size of half a coconut. Our hoppers had an egg cracked into each on for extra flavour.
The kothu roti was spicy and very heavy. The roti bread made it filling, but the vegetables kept it from being too boring and sludgy. The curry went well with it, but was not too interesting in it's own right. It was one of those curries where you are not entirely sure which part of the chicken you are eating, but there seem to be sharp bones sticking out of every part of it. The curry sauce also went perfectly with our hoppers, which soaked up the flavour nicely, mixing with the very runny yolk of the egg inside the hopper.
We finished with some tea which was so sweet I could almost feel the enamel on my teeth dissolve as I drank it. I'm certain that a can of coke would have contained less sugar.
RECOMMENDED
I would recommend this place as a delicious, cheap and dirty option for anyone who lands in the airport north of Colombo; but don't worry if you can't track down this exact place, since there are about fifty other places just like it in either direction on the same road, and they all looked, smelled and sounded as good and musical as this particular little spot.
The bill (for 2, not itemized, just scribbled on a scrap of paper):
1 x Chicken Kothu Roti
1 x Chicken Curry
2 x Egg Hoppers
2 x Tea TOTAL: 600 Rupees (Approx. US$4.70)
Restaurant address: The main coastal highway, near the main airport north of Colombo.
Does anything say delicious more than a heaped pile of freshly steamed, juicy lamb dumplings? I doubt it very much. Each hot little parcel is a flavour explosion that leaves you fumbling with your chopsticks to try and stab at the next slippery sucker. When they are cooked fresh, with the perfect ratio of casing to meat quantity, they tick every box in my book. The dumplings at Nihal Chinese have received significant hype and I am happy to report (as is not always the case) that they lived up to, if not exceeded, their fine reputation!
The vegie dumplings were fresh and fantastic
Dumplings aside, I tend to cringe at the suggestion of "Chinese." Far, far too often, my experience of Chinese cuisine has been a salty, oily, bland adaptation of a traditional dish which rewards you with psychedelic MSG fueled dreams. I was ready to be proven wrong.
We gathered a willing group and ventued off into the night to pay a visit to Nihal Chinese which is not the easiest restaurant to find thanks in part to its fading sign and its somewhat awkward location. Our perseverance was awarded upon arrival with our very own private room which is always nice when you have a larger group but it does segregate you somewhat from the entertainment of Nihal's open kitchen where, for better or worse, you can witness your meal being created.
Handcrafted Noodle Soup with Lamb
We started with the dumplings; how could we not? We were a tad disappointed that the famed pan fried bao were not available on the night we were there. However, the disappointment was short lived following the delivery of bulging plates of the handmade lamb, chicken and vegetable dumplings. Wow! The dumplings use a much thinner casing than the bao which is more like a cake/bun texture. This means that the dumplings really showcase their contents in all their glory. While the lamb ones were unquestionably delicious, the chicken dumplings were a big hit and the freshness of the vegetable dumplings won over even the most steadfast carnivores of our group.
While ordinary, civilised humans would have been satisfied after the dumplings, we clearly did not fit this description and proceeded to order an incredible quantity of food. The menu sucks you in with page after page of enticing photos, and the prices are too cheap to deter you from ordering insane quantities. I started with a very simple, but perfectly tasty seaweed with egg soup - a pallet cleanser really. Out of the two noodle soups we ordered, the definite winner was the lamb. The handcrafted noodles were sensational and the lamb was surprisingly good quality meat - as opposed to the Beef soup which was let down by the fatty, chewy scraps of beef. The noodles were quite different to other handmade noodles we had tried elsewhere; they were much wider and were quite thick, but this suited the intensity of the soup's flavour very nicely.
Spicy Handcrafted Noodles - AWESOME!
In case our stomachs weren't ready to explode, we rounded off our soups with a bowl of spicy handcrafted noodles which came a very close runner up to the lamb noodle soup and the dumplings! The spice of the sauce drizzled over and hiding under the noodles was just right - a warm, green pepper type of spice that perfectly complemented the slightly thinner noodles which were topped with a generous scoop of peanuts.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Nihal Chinese received a unanimous vote of 'Highly Recommended'. It has some really excellent food at incredibly reasonably prices for a Dubai restaurant. Although some of the food took awhile to make it to the table, the staff were friendly and attentive and when the food came it was fresh, good quality and delicious. The serving sizes are also very generous and the handmade noodles are the best I have had in a long time. It is definitely worth the trek to Jumeriah to try out this restaurant and we will be heading back to try the elusive fried bao very soon!
The bill (for 2, but there was enough for at least 4 people):
1 x Signature Lamb Dumplings - 26 Dhs
1 x Steamed Vegetable Dumplings - 18 Dhs
1 x Steamed Chicken Dumplings - 20 Dhs
1 x Fried Handcrafted Noodle Soup with Lamb (Medium) - 20 Dhs
1 x Handcrafted Noodle Soup with Beef (Medium) - 20 Dhs
1 x Seaweed with Egg Soup - 8 Dhs
1 x Handcrafted Noodles (spicy) - 12 Dhs
1 x Homemade Lemonade - 10 Dhs
1 x Endless Pot of Jasmine Tea - 28 Dhs
1 x large water - 6 Dhs TOTAL: 168 Dhs (Approx. US$45)
Restaurant address:Jumeirah 1, opposite Union House, where the enormous flagpole is.
The Champs-Élysées is a Parisian shopping street where rich people go to
buy things. It is a beautiful place to walk around, with wide footpaths
and well maintained classic architecture all around. Street performers keep the place
interesting, and there is no shortage of places to sit, enjoy an overpriced coffee, and watch the world go by. So with all that choice at my disposal, and some serious blog-worthy intentions, I walked into.... McDonalds.
Why would anyone want to visit a McDonalds anywhere in the world, let alone on the most upmarket shopping street in Paris? I can think of at least two reasons.
Firstly, I actually don't mind a little bit of Ronald's rubbish every now and again, usually when I'm trapped at an airport and all the other 'food' available is even more expensive and often not very fresh. At least the golden arches are always busy, no matter where you are, so you have a better chance of not dying from food poisoning.
The other reason, specifically concerning my visit to Maccas in Paris, is because of some reasonably well known dialogue from the movie Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino. In the scene, John Travolta is describing to Samuel L. Jackson some of the stranger things about his trip to Paris, such as being able to order beer at McDonalds, the fact that a Quarter Pounder is referred to as a Royal with Cheese, and how strange it is that Europeans 'drown' their fries in mayonnaise instead of ketchup.
Here is the clip from the movie, to complete the context. Skip to 0:40 if you just want to hear the relevant bit:
Pulp Fiction is one of my favourite movies, so when planning for Paris, a trip to the makers of the Happy Meal was on my list of places to visit.
The location is great. It looked more like a medieval castle from the outside rather than a trashy fast food dungeon. But then I stepped inside to see the usual chaos that you would expect to see inside any McDonalds at rush hour. The place smelled like burnt oil, floor cleaner and armpits. Blazing a trail to the front counter took twenty minutes, thanks to the hundreds of other people who also chose this exact place and time to have their meal.
Well, at least it will be fresh, right?
I ordered my meal: A Cheese Royal with a beer and a side of wedges with extra mayonnaise. Mission accomplished.
A meal fit for someone who isn't very hungry
I finally found a spot to sit and inspect what they had given me. The burger looked as old as the movie which had inspired me to order it, and it just sat there in it's box, looking saggy and defeated, like it was asleep. I've had a Quarter Pounder before, and this thing looked more like an overgrown cheeseburger that had returned from some kind of war.
On closer inspection I noticed that the cheese had actually started to fuse with the bun, and that the meat patty had bled all it's moisture into the bread as well. I was planning on taking a photo of the inside of the burger, but I couldnt take it apart thanks to the cheese-welding which had taken place in the box.
The wedges had a few stray fries in amongst them, which was sloppy, but at least they were fresh. No salt had been added, which is fine since I prefer to be in control of how much is on my fries, but if I had known then I might have taken a salt sachet from the counter, which by that time was fifty meters and 400 people away from where I was sitting.The mayonnaise was great. It was thick, and had chunks of pickle in it which made it taste like tartare sauce.
The beer was beer, only smaller. It came in a tin the size of a red bull can, and wasn't very cold.
Considering where I was, you might think that 7 euros is good value for a meal. But the thing about most food at McDonalds is that it doesn't leave you feeling full for very long. I could have eaten another three of the same meals before feeling satisfied, which would then end up being a high priced meal.
NOT RECOMMENDED
I have been to Maccas plenty of times in plenty of countries, and ordinarily I would recommend it as a necessary evil, but this time was the worst experience I've had there in my memory. Maybe I was the only person since 1994 to order a Cheese Royale, and perhaps the beer wasn't cold thanks to the sheer turnover of the place limiting their ability to keep things cold. But I don't care. It's not like McDonalds aren't expecting to be busy, and they have been in this business for some time now, so the processes should be in place to maintain a certain level of quality. Considering how seriously Maccas take their own reputation, it is a sad shame to see this not communicated through the food itself.
The bill (for 1):
1 x Royal Cheese (aka Quarter Pounder)
1 x Regular Sized Deluxe Potatoes (aka Potato Wedges)
1 x 300ml Heineken Beer
1 x Large Mayonnaise Portion TOTAL: 7 Euros (meal price) (Approx. US$9)
Restaurant address:
Champs-Élysées, Paris, France. About 100 meters from the Arc de Triomphe.
We were intrigued by the Jumbo Prawns that looked more like medium sized lobster than prawns, so we opted for two of those bad boys, accompanied by chips and salad. The beer arrived quickly and it's sub zero temperature was appreciated and quite unanticipated given the location! The mojito was sadly disappointing, arriving a good 30 minutes later and containing more undissolved sugar than mint. If only I could bring myself to like beer....
