Mackerel croquettes

Kolamba is on Kingly Street. That weird back alley behind Regent Street that really should just be full of the wheelie bins and detritus of all the big flagship stores whose staff exits emerge onto it, but instead is lined with some pretty decent places to eat. I’ve a sneaking suspicion Kolamba is the best of them.

You know the deal with Sri Lankan cuisine. BRIGHT flavours. SERIOUS spicing. BOLD colours. HARMONY of sweet/hot/sour/bitter. It’s basically the perfect casual dining cuisine for anyone who just loves their food to explode with flavour. Kolamba does Sri Lankan pretty much perfectly.

Cuttlefish

Oh let me talk about the date and lime chutney! I mean, it’s totally unsophisticated. Mash up dates with limes and chilli. You can go and make some yourself. Doesn’t make it any less brilliant, with everything. I really liked their take on a seeni sambal as well. I’m used to a sticky-sweet onion flavour, but instead this was heavy on the fish paste and somehow came out with a funky blue-cheesey flavour that was very good with a mouthful of curry.

The goat curry was excellent, a very well built curry gravy and sturdy flavourful goat chunks. Jackfruit curry also good, maybe a tad less exciting. Pineapple and aubergine curry another explosion of flavour, maxed on the sweet but with enough hot-sour to balance. Good hoppers. Very good pulau rice.

We basically scoffed everything and went away happy, our mouths singing a spicy tune for hours after. Probably £30 each before drinks (but we guzzled a couple of good cocktails each, which pushed the bill up a notch). Excellent place to know about, for when you’re in Soho.

Curry feast

Sambols

Have I spun out the announce long enough? I should also add that I am honourably excluding Dastaan. There simply couldn’t be a takeaway better than what you get from the best straight Indian restaurant in the UK (my award, no arguments brooked). But it is literally a takeaway; I can get it home still hot and put it on a plate. So on those tenuous grounds, I’m excluding Dastaan from the “Best lockdown food box feast” award.

And the award goes to… Paradise, Soho. We fell in love with our first meal there, back in the days when restaurants were open; they seemed intent on doing for Sri Lankan food what Kiln around the corner was doing for Thai. And everything they do translates superbly to a food box.

You’ve got your aubergine moju (oh gods I love moju!), you’ve got your pol sambol, you’ve got a spicy little empanada with tamarind mayo to start the meal. Cleverly, you’ve got your seeni sambol in the form of seeni sambol butter, to slather on the huge hunk of soft and cloudy paan bread (you’re instructed to toast this yourself). Oh wow… this was one of the best flavoured butters ever. Ever ever.

You’ve got the true Sri Lankan turmeric dahl, full of deeply smoky and earthy flavours but less velvet-buttery than the best Indian dahls. For the main event you’ve got a wonderfully flavour-packed pulled pork shoulder with plenty of warm spices and a fragrant palm sugar caramel to pour over it. Oh, and an astonishing dollop of smoked coconut yogurt that I WANT AN ENTIRE VAN-LOAD OF RIGHT NOW. I have no idea how they got that much flavour and silkiness in there but I would eat it with everything.

We cheated, I admit. We ate it all with our fingers. Food always, always tastes better when you eat it with your fingers. Doesn’t matter, this would still have been the best food box.

There was a nicely sticky cinnamon rice pudding for after, and a bottle of fresh Sri Lankan ginger beer. And this was a generous box too. Basically we had enough extra of everything to have a cold Sri Lankan brunch the next day.

Paradise feast