SUN, SAND & SEENI SAMBOL

Sri Lankan food is a spell-binding mishmash of the island’s history

- BARRY RODGERS

It is morning and the sun is sitting pretty behind the glorious headland at the southern tip of Sri Lanka, Cape Weligama, which presides over a coastline of coconut groves, soaring cliffs, and sandy beaches.

Cape Weligama is a 40-minute drive along the coast from Galle Fort, an enchanting town with a history that dates back almost 2,000 years. It’s the kind of place you could spend a couple of days exploring on your own.

It is here that I taste my first egg hopper. The head chef has coaxed me into giving up on my usual morning slumber and waking up to a true Lankan breakfast – as carb-laden as most meals here. But I’m not complaining. Away from the bustle of guests, I tuck into my breakfast at the Ocean Terrace, a gorgeously high-ceilinged restaurant with huge windows and a wide verandah.

Hoppers (we know them as appams in South India) are breakfast specials, made from fermented rice flour, cooked in a rounded pan, eaten with many of the same thin curries you would have for lunch and dinner, or just with the sweetened seeni sambal that I love, made from caramalised onions.

A perfect egg hopper can be intimidating to achieve, but once made, it stands out for its visual appeal – the egg neatly cracked into the rounded “bowl” of the pancake. It is also a complete meal in itself. But there’s more arriving on the breakfast table: String hoppers (iddiappam for us), made from a thicker batter than that of the hoppers – the dough squeezed through a contraption like a pasta press, to create strands that are steamed.