Kottu, hoppers and short eats: Sri Lankan street food

About Kottu, hoppers and short eats: Sri Lankan street food

By the ULTIMATE Sri Lanka Editorial Team

Away from the rice-and-curry lunch, Sri Lanka eats from roadside stalls, bakeries and “hotels” (as local cafés are called): kottu, hoppers, string hoppers and an endless tray of short eats.

Kottu roti

Kottu is chopped flatbread, stir-fried on a big iron griddle with vegetables, egg and chicken, beef or seafood and a ladle of curry, and chopped again and again with two steel blades. Cheese kottu and dolphin kottu (a version with larger pieces of roti, no dolphin involved) are popular variations.

Hoppers and string hoppers

Hoppers (appa) are bowl-shaped pancakes of fermented rice flour and coconut milk, crisp at the edges and soft in the middle; an egg hopper has an egg cooked in the base. String hoppers (idiyappam) are nests of steamed rice noodles, eaten with dhal, coconut gravy and sambol, often for breakfast or dinner.

You will hear a kottu shop before you see it: the clang of steel blades on the hot plate is the soundtrack of a Sri Lankan evening.

Short eats

In bakeries and cafés, a tray of “short eats” is put on the table and you pay for what you eat: fish buns, patties, rolls, cutlets and vadai. Along Galle Face Green, the stalls fry isso vadai, lentil fritters topped with whole prawns.

Sambols

Pol sambol (fresh coconut with chilli, lime and onion) and lunu miris (a fiery onion-and-chilli paste) go with almost everything. Seeni sambol is sweet and spicy caramelised onion.

Sweet things

Watalappan is a rich coconut and jaggery custard; kiribath, milk rice, is eaten at New Year and on special mornings, and curd and treacle (buffalo curd with kithul palm syrup) is a southern favourite.

Where to eat it

Try Galle Face Green at sunset for street snacks, a busy local “hotel” for kottu, and the village spreads at Nuga Gama or Upali’s for many dishes at once. Spice levels can be high: ask for “less spicy” if you need to.

Our advice: eat where it is busy and the food is cooked in front of you, carry hand sanitiser and bottled water, and say yes to the egg hopper with lunu miris at least once.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Kottu, hoppers and short eats: Sri Lankan street food before you go.