Avocado soup, aubergine salad and pumpkin curry in Unawatuna...

We decided to opt for a little bit of luxury for a few days and checked into the Norlanka hotel. It's a fine new place set in a peaceful garden and all the rooms have wee balconies. The name Norlanka is a made from a bit of Norway and a bit of Sri Lanka and that's exactly what you get when you meet the lovely couple who own the place.  It's only a minute or two to the beach and our time has been divided between swimming and sunbathing and sitting in the shady garden watching monkeys and birds (and eating, of course). When we arrived, there was a big monitor lizard sitting by the gate, but I haven't seen it since, even though I've been looking every day.

We've had several chances to try Sri Lankan food now, and the food at the Norlanka has been superb. One night we got pumpkin curry with coconut gravy, accompanied by dhal, rice, popadoms and aubergine salad.... delicious. The salad should be quite easy to make: thinly sliced aubergines, well fried and mixed with raw chopped onion, tomato and salad leaves with a squirt of lime juice. Simple, but effective. The curry was a bit more complicated; I've been asking about to find out how to make the creamy coconut gravy, but I'll need to wait till I get a chance to try it out before I can report on how it's done.

The avocado soup was in another place: a vegetarian restaurant just inland from the beach. I'm always a little bit suspicious about veggie restaurants. I've been in some terrific ones, but so often, they make me feel a little bit uncomfortable. There often seems to be an underlying set of presumptions involved in the areas of health and spirituality, which go beyond the basic notion of vegetarianism. Basically, they're not usually the kind of places you'd feel comfortable getting pissed in and you'd probably have difficulty finding an ashtray. The music too... I'd much rather listen to Ramstein than whale-music or chanting.   But anyway... I'm just a grumpy old sod. This veggie restaurant was okay - It was a quiet place with a garden and the range of dishes was quite unusual. The avocado soup was pureed, but I think I'll try something similar with peices of avocado to retain some texture (I thought spinach and avocado soup might be a nice idea to try). The avocados in Sri Lanka are delicious - big fat super-ripe fruits that make great juices and salads, too. The juice is made by blending avocad, sugar and young coconut milk. A truly wonderful concoction. Cooling, soothing and filling. Salads are popular too; usually they're simple with just some chopped onion and garlic and lime juice.

Another wee recipe which I can describe here is for the ubiquitous coconut sambol. This is similar to Indian coconut chutney , but even easier to make. At it's simplest, it's shredded fresh coconut mixed with red chilli powder, lime juice and maybe a little salt. We also encountered a variation which included some lightly fried red onion and chopped tomato: a very tasty addition.

Tomorrow morning we head for Kuala Lumpur where we'll probably be enjoying some Chinese food, since we're staying in Chinatown.