Issue 30

19 August

Breakfast and Lunch

The Mandarina now offer a breakfast for delivery. There is a choice of either a Sri Lankan breakfast or Continental, and delivery is available from 8am to 10am.

Isso now also offer a breakfast menu at weekends, from 8am to 11am. You can enjoy dishes like sourdough bread loaded with eggs, mushrooms, hash brown and sausage. Best of all, it is available dine-in or delivered to your door.

Cinnamon and Spice is a small business who offer budget curry and rice or lamprais lunch packs starting from Rs230 for a regular pack or Rs160 for the budget pack. In the evenings they offer kottu and fried rice selections.

Another small business you might like to try is The Vegan Kitchen by Sulo. They offer four dishes each day, for lunch, dinner or both. They do ask for orders to  be placed the day before. The dishes on offer include pastas, pot pies and hoppers, with cookies and cakes for dessert

If you like Kottu, you might like The Pol Roti Mafia who offer a selection of kottus plus extras like chicken wings. These are available for dine in or delivery.

The Kingsbury are launching "Indulge" today, 19 August, a new delivery platform with over 400 dishes available for delivery in and around Colombo. Check out the menu, there's a lot to choose from.

High Tea and Dinner:

The Mandarina's High Tea can now be delivered direct to your home. Their "High Tea on Wheels" is for two people and contains 11 items per person, a mix of savoury and sweet. Delivery is available between 12.00 midday and 2.00pm, or 6.00pm to 8.00pm.

Today, Thursday 19th August is the "Buy a Meal" day, to give support to the restaurants, their staff and suppliers. Are you going to order a meal today, to help out? If you do please make a post on facebook or Instagram saying what you ordered, with hashtag #EveryMealHelps.

Chinese Dragon Café have created a special meal combo for today only, including Hot Butter Cuttlefish, Hot Butter Bangers, Chilli Chicken and Devilled Fish with a free portion of fried rice. This is available only today.

The Fish and Chips Colombo have brought back their Buy One, Get One Free offer on their Classic Fish and Chips for this week only. That's available for lunch or dinner, for delivery.

Baker's Blend, better known for their burgers and donuts, have introduced a Kottu de Cuttle, made with roti infused with curry leaf, devilled cuttlefish, vegetables and more. And they offer free delivery during certain areas during happy hour, 3pm to 6pm.

Grand Slam by Mitsi are still offering their pizza combo, which includes a regular Margherita, garlic bread, a chocolate panna cotta and lime juice for Rs990, which is available for dine-in or delivery.

Whatever you do, wherever you go, keep safe and stay well. 

Happy Hours & Ladies' Night

Some more places have temporarily closed over the past week, but some are still open though of course are now closing earlier, around 9.00pm or 9.30pm. 

The newly opened Balalaika Gallery Cafe in Nugegoda is open air and offers a selection of food including Russian style beetroot salad, borscht soup, pelmeni dumplings and more, and while there is no happy hour, you can BYOB.

Another new place, The Fox Den, has a unique offer to support the vaccination drive: show that you are vaccinated and get a free cocktail! They require advance reservations, to follow the strict guidelines.

The outdoor seating at The Curve Bar is still available, as is their happy hour from Sunday to Thursday, 5pm to 7pm. Over at Asylum, their outdoor area and 5pm to 8pm happy hours are still available.

The Irish's rooftop Red Dwarf is also open from 4pm Monday to Saturday, with a happy hour 5pm to 7pm.  ME Colombo's rooftop restaurant and bar is also open with a 5pm to 7pm daily happy hour.

Over in Maharagama, Banjo's by the Lake also has an open air rooftop. They have suspended the music but the food is available (and we tried the Hot Butter Cuttlefish and Fish & Chips, both were very good!).  

Live Music and DJs

There's little if any live music at the moment and this week there are fewer places even with DJ music.   

DJs are still playing at King of the Mambo each night until 9.30pm, with a different theme each night. 

And next door at FireBeach, also open air, they too have DJs playing nightly until 9.30pm.

Wherever you go, do take care.

Other Events

The WNPS lecture this week features a well known figure, Prof. Sarath Kotagama, talking about Protection, Conservation and Future Challenges, This is online at 6.00pm on Thursday 19th August.

There's also a business webinar that may be of interest on Thursday 19th August, a little later at 8.30pm. This is an interactive webinar on How E-Commerce Has Changed from 2020 to 2021. 

For the singers among us, Live It Up 2021 is an online singing contest being held on 28th August at 6pm. If you want to enter,  there are limited spaces available so contact them to get registered.

For the Armchair Travellers, this week we have found another guided tour of Venice, this time the hide-way Dorsoduro district. You can explore this on Friday 20th at 9.30pm.

Looking ahead to next week, the Mount Lavinia Hotel, with Thushara and Danu Innasithamby, present a three-day festival of Jaffna food, A Taste Of Jaffna from 27th to 29th August. There is a different menu every day and it will be delivered to your door. It needs to be pre-ordered, so check which day or days look best and call to order in good time!

Events are being added to our diary almost daily so keep checking back and see what's new.