The Brewery By O! has been the best bar in Colombo since it opened two years ago. Best location (Dutch Hospital), good food, cheap drinks. The only problem was that it got so packed on weekends that you couldn’t get service. Someone else is taking over the lease, so no more O! Bar. Photo by Malinthe (http://goo.gl/tZR1X) The Brewery’s ...

Shiraz is a great new restaurant on Stratford Avenue serving Iranian cuisine upon the old upper floors of Gandhara. At the moment they’re only open for dinner, which is served buffet style and costs around Rs. 1500 per head for copious portions of meat, rice and mezze. Stratford Avenue is an interesting street. It used to be predominantly occupied by ...

Dodgy Bars. They’re one of our favourite aspects of Colombo living. While the occasional luxurious cocktail at Colombo Courtyard or 7 Degrees is always good, the overspent rupees and rigorous dress codes don’t really constitute the height of appeal to a rather shabby and shoe-averse team. Having been denied entrance from many a bar due to a reluctance to ...

Maldivian food may not be one of the world’s great cuisines. 101 things to do with dried tuna fish (aka maldive fish) is, or well should be, the gastronomic motto of that unworldly necklace of paradise islands strung across the Indian Ocean to the west of Sri Lanka. It’s food based on centuries of hardship and scarcity. Before Americans/Europeans discovered ...

The architectural highlight of Nugegoda – Colombo’s favourite centre of cheap clothes and choking traffic – has ceased to be its arching flyover. Strange as it may sound, there really was a time when residents were atwitter with excitement at the rising curlicue of concrete stretching across that brief section of the traffic-ridden Highlevel road. However, as of just a ...

Chocolate biscuit pudding(CBP). At some point, somewhere in the Ceylon of the previous century some colonial cook, or rather some colonial’s cook, or maybe it was a Colombar hostess, must have run out of chocolate mousse. Perhaps the guest list was off and there were suddenly too many mouths to feed. Being an inventive sort, however and not about to ...

Hana Mart is a little Korean supermarket in Colpetty (located next to the Juliana Hotel) selling a range of Korean food products – soups, pastes, drinks, mixes and so on. Colombo used to have a more obvious cluster Korean shops – there was Ilme on Park Road and that great big store at the bottom of the Royal Park apartments ...

This may be stating the obvious, but bars are nocturnal creatures. While they may roar and rage by night, disturb the sleepy kraken during an afternoon or early evening, and you’re dealing with an entirely different kind of beast. Such is the case with Skky Bar – a luminous blue platform, (almost) elevated above the city, with a pizza wedge ...

A speech by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, Executive Director LKIIRSS, at Inaugural session of the Discussion Series on “National Policy on Social Integration” 29th April 2013. Good evening everyone, Hon.Prof. G.L.Peiris Minister of External Affairs, Hon. Vasudeva Nanayakkara, Minister of National Languages and Social Integration, His Excellency Dr. Jürgen Morhard, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Sri Lanka, Ms. Malkanthi ...

Kithulgala is quickly gaining reputation the capital of adrenaline sports in Sri Lanka. The Kelani River, which begins at Sri Pada and continues to Colombo, is home to amazing rapids. There are a number of tour operators who run rafting trips on the Kelani out of Kithugala, but only one is internationally certified for safety – Borderlands. Taking the ...

තවත් එක් සංගීතමය වැඩසටහනක් පමණක්ම නොවේ! නාද්රෝ සමග ජීව්තය විදින්න දෙසැම්බර් 30 ඉරිදා සවස 7 සිට නෙළුම් පොකුණෙදි පුළුවන් වේවි. ශ්‍රී ලාංකේය නාදරටාවන් සහ ඉන්දියානු, අප්‍රිකානු, ලතින් සංගීතයත් සමග එක්වීමට හැකිවීම මෙහි සුවිශේෂීයත්වයයි. ...

Bang Bang known for their Oh My Goat parties has organized one kick-ass New Year’s Party at Saffron Beach Hotel in Wadduwa. The party will be powered with music by Asvajit, Tim Tim, Shiyam, Twiggy, Geve, Sunara and Upul. The tickets are inclusive of a limited bar which will include Beer, White Rum, Vodka, White & Dark Arrack, Gin and ...

Pettah. It’s the oldest, most interesting and perhaps most underrated (at least by Southern Colombars) part of the city. Whatever the more sheltered denizens of Colombo-South may think this teaming, multi-ethnic-warren remains the beating heart of our city. Almost all the food we buy, a good proportion of the white goods/electronics we use and virtually all the piping, wiring, nuts, ...

Paradise is a lovely vegetarian cafe in the shadow of the Sri Sambuddha Jayanthi building near Thumulla junction. It’s exceptionally clean and serves great vegetarian rice and curry and eggless desserts. Let’s start with the rice and curry. Their lunchtime repast is Rs. 150, which is on the high-end for vegetarian R&C, but it’s of really high quality. Their juice, ...

Midaya is a ceramics shop with affordable cups, bowls, plates and various ceramic things. We once walked into the Midaya shop thinking it had chocolates, which it doesn’t. This storefront on the corner of Union Place and Dawson Street has a range of rather affordable and high quality ceramics ranging from the usual coffee mugs (Rs. 300) to big ducks ...

YAMU is starting to add halal icons to food reviews and we’ll slowly go through our archives and improve our search. This is to make the site more friendly for Muslims, for whom halal is required, and it should make no difference to non-Muslims, for whom halal food is just fine. These are individual choices responded to by businesses ...

The fourth edition of I Love Una will take place on the 19th at Lucky Tuna at the Unawatuna Bay. The party organized for friends by friends promises to take it to new heights this year. Like the previous years the I Love Una t-shirt will be the ticket into the party. The t-shirts are priced at Rs 2000 each ...

It wasn’t so long ago that we were pondering the merits of Colombo’s iconic burgers, contemplating whether the heydey of our beef and bun heavyweights Sugar and Burger’s King had finally come to an end. Had they? Well, we wouldn’t have thought so if we hadn’t stumbled across Al-Jazeera – and no, we don’t mean the TV channel. This new ...

முதலில் இது குறைந்த விலை முடிதிருத்தும் நிலையம் அல்ல என்பதை சொல்லிவிடவேண்டும்! இங்கு எல்லாவற்றுக்கும் கட்டணம் அதிகம்தான். எனக்கு “ஸ்டான்டர்ட் கட்”டுக்கும் “Bப்ளோ ட்ரை”க்குமாக ரூபா 3000 செலவானது. இது நிச்சயமாக மிக அதிகம்தான். ஆனாலும் உங்களுக்கு கட்டுப்படியாகுமென்றால் போவதற்கு நல்லதொரு இடம்தான். கொழும்பின் 5 நட்சத்திர ஹோட்டல்களான சினமன் கிரான்ட், கொழும்பு ஹில்டன், தாஜ் சமுத்ரா, ஜெயிக் ஹில்டன் என்பனவற்றிலும் நுகேகொடை, பொரளை, எலிபேங்க் வீதி போன்ற இடங்களிலும் இதன் கிளைகள் இயங்குகின்றன. நீ

Battaramulla’s weekly organic/healthy/ethical market is back today, from 12 PM to 8 PM. It’s held at the Diyath Uyana stands near the newly refurbished Diyawanna Oya waterway, near Water’s Edge. It’s a beautiful space and they have a lot of lovely produce, prepared food (like sandwiches), and local crafts. Their goal is to create a sustainable and ethical market. The ...