A Lakbima Dinner on Friday, 24 May 2013

A lot of you may not know that the word "serendipity" comes from the country Serendib, and this country has also other names such as Lakbima, Tambaparni and Ceilăo. Ptolemy called the island state Simoundou (and oddly also Salike), Alexander the Great called it Taprobane while the Chinese named it Pa-Outchow (Island of Gems). By now, you should be guessing that I am talking about an island state with as many fiery and delicious dishes as its names - and that island is of course Lakdiva, or Ilanare, or Tenerism - but actually better known more to us as Ceylon or Sri Lanka.

So this month's dinner takes us on another culinary excursion, this time to the South Indian Ocean where we will taste dishes made as traditionally as possible (with no monosodium glutamate or cheap flavour enhancers) and all the meats are organically sourced. The dishes, being authentic, have been described as ranging from mild, to spicy and progressing to pretty darn fiery. And fiery here means Hot, and I mean, Hot, pronounced with a capital F as Sri Lankans think that the hottest Indian curries are about as mild as coconut candy. Still, this should not scare anyone off as there are lots of milder dishes which will tempt any gently adventurous German palate - and I am already totally sure you are not someone with a wimpish disposition else I won't be writing to you in the first place.

Anyway, this month's eclectic Ceylonese dinner will be held on the evening of Friday 24 May at Sigiriya, probably the best Sri Lankan restaurant in Berlin. As mentioned, they don't use flavour enhancers and all their meats are from organic farms so the quality of their dishes are beyond question. To add a bit more spice, dinner will be in Ost-Berlin as the address is Grünbergerstr. 66 / Ecke Simon-Dach-Str, 10245 Berlin Friedrichshain (I always find it fun to travel to East Berlin, for some very silly quirky reason). And the good news is that there are also a lot of bars around the corner after dinner to have a nice degustif or two.

We are looking for a good crowd of adventurous diners for this unusual dinner so please drop an email to Sylvia as soon as possible to book your place. The closing date is Tuesday 21 May for all bookings and all those who make it on the list will be informed the next day or so. Personally, I don't think you should miss this chance to taste something really exotic and authentic, especially after such a long winter and if you need to check it out, their website is http://www.restaurant-sigiriya.de/

Cheers,

Chris (on behalf of Sylvia)

How it went on the night...

Overall, we really had a pretty good evening at this very popular Sri Lankan place - it's Susan's favourite restaurant and we can now understand why. Every dish was worth trying out and we have some interesting combinations such as beef in fish curry, which I guess is either mis-named or very creative but still pretty delicious despite the little confusion. All the dishes were well cooked, and service was very good as we were quite a big group. If you are ever in Friedrichshain, then this is definitely one of the better places you should try in the district.

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