Our friend Jenita is the sweetest. She would always bring us fruit and veggies from her trips to provinces. On several occasions, she brought manioc which I baked into cassava cake.

Today, she invited us for lunch in her home. In the four years of my stay here in Sri Lanka, I would say this is definitely the best Sri Lankan lunch that I ever had, the DH and my kids agreed. Well, others may not  especially the locals. The chili is a lot less so the dishes are not too spicy, just enough to tease your palate. BUT it does cater to my palate.. and the kids' too.

In many buffet dinners, I seldom visit the table laden with Sri Lankan dishes. My taste buds are just too sensitive and couldn't distinguish the meats of curries because to me they all taste too spicy and hot. But this is just my honest opinion, I am not a gourmet, maybe for that reason I couldn't tell the difference. Nor do I intend to undermine the lovely Sri Lankan dishes I have grown a bit familiar with. BUT, this lunch Jenita prepared is very different and made me appreciate the local dishes more. Just excellent!

Before we were served, we also had the privilege of watching her cook home-made egg hoppers (bittara apa) and plain hoppers. I never thought it to be so easy. If you want to know how it is done, the recipe of egg hoppers is here. Other recipes of Sri Lankan dishes are here.

We always try to buy our egg hoppers and naan from Curry Bowl eatery and love it just the same but nothing beats anything cooked from scratch which I always attempt to do in my own kitchen at least as often as I could. We love egg hoppers with sambol.

As a local tradition, we were served tambili juice or the refreshing water from the king coconut when we arrived. For lunch, there was an array of beautiful tasty curries. First, we had lovely garden salad and cheese. We had caju, prawn, chicken, bread fruit as main dishes. Sambol came with the hoppers. We had pitthu, red rice and white basmati rice. Papaya and bananas were for desert. It was a marvelous afternoon of delightful gastronomic experience.