Eating out – Locally
Like any suburb, Wattala has a variety of restaurants ranging from Western style fast food outlets (KFC, Pizza Hut …. but no MacDonalds) to Sri Lankan fast food and takeaway places to very relaxing restaurants. Only a few restaurants have a liquor licences but those without licence are happy to let you to bring your own alcohol. Sometimes its a cultural issue but mainly it’s that restaurant liquor licences are very expensive.
Here a list of some local restaurants
- with a liquor licence – Cafe Ivy, 1 mile (less than 5 minutes by 3-wheeler), which does everything from Sri Lankan to western style food and is our favourite, the beautiful beach side Fish Restaurant at Pegasus Reef Hotel (20 min 3-wheeler/taxi ride), Savannah Restaurant (5 minute 3 wheeler drive) and Spice Trail Restaurant on the Negumbo Road .
- without a liquor licence (you can take your own alcohol) – Royal Boat House (Thai – 5 min 3-wheeler ride), Mahagedara (mainly Sri Lankan) and Pan Restaurant (Sri Lankan, Indian, Chinese, Japanese), next door to each other on the Old Negombo Road (7 min 3-wheeler ride) and Elite Family Restaurant (Biryani) on the Negumbo Road (A3)
- fast food – there’s Street Burger, and Dominos Pizza, both also on the Negumbo Road (less then 5 mins by 3-wheeler) and many other ‘Kades’ which we’ve not tried.
Eating out – Colombo
Hotels
Like any capital city, City has a good selection of restaurants. All the major hotels have their own restaurants and provide the classic Sri Lankan buffet lunches. There are too many list but a few a worth mentioning;
- Galle Face – is renowned for its colonial style and seafront views. It does a reasonably good lunchtime buffet. Worth visiting for the charming atmosphere.
- Cinnamon Lakeside – has an extensive lunchtime buffet. If you love food, go.
- Grand Oriental Hotel – overlooks the docks and is the second oldest hotels in Colombo. Unfortunately the new raised highway partially blocks the view but if you are interested to see Colombo at work, this is the place to have a buffet lunch, It is fairly close to Pettah, so if you are visiting this market in the morning, then the GOH is a good place to go and relax afterwards. The buffet lunch is reasonable but not as good as the two above.
Restaurants
- Bareface Cafe – if you want to do some fabric/tourist shopping, then this is the place to go. It is a very relaxed atmosphere to have a simple, tasty lunch. The food is fresh, the garden is cool and the shopping interesting.
- Dutch Hospital – as the name suggest, this is an old hospital site in the banking/port area which has a number of bars and restaurants in and around it. It is fairly touristy and the restaurants tend to cater for western tastes, but again there are opportunities to eat SL and other Asian dishes.