Will porcelain replace clay pots ever?

Heritance Kandalama, or better known as Kandalama Hotel, is renowned for its award winning food and its Sri Lankan corner. Unlike most other places where the Sri Lankan cuisine is literally relegated to a corner, at Heritance Kandalama the Sri Lankan dishes grandly sit at the very entrance of the buffet. There are no mud thatched counters or mats of woven coconut leaf as a ‘shelter’ to indicate that this is local cuisine. If a fault could be found it is in their clay pots. Albeit the pots are polished and designed, but nevertheless are pots.

The age old argument of bojoon.com is that, if anyone comes to your house or my house we are not going to serve food out of our cooking pots and pans. So, why do hotels insist on serving us in their pots? Well, the hotel industry is full of quirky mysteries. For instance, they charge us for the accommodation, food and everything else, but still insist on calling us their guests!!! Serving Sri Lankan food out of their pots to their ‘guests,’ who are billed for their hospitality, must be another such quirk in the hotel business!

Quirk or not, we would be delighted if somebody would break the current trend and start serving this delectable food in dishes worthy of its exquisiteness. For inspiration, we highly recommend a quick trip to the Colombo Museum. Unlike in other countries where the entrance fee to places of art and history collections are quite exorbitant, going to the Colombo Museum is not going to break the bank. Of course, you don’t find the same level of service, though the personnel are quite friendly and upon request will find you leaflets and booklets in a rickety old cobwebbed cupboard in a musty old office room.

Perhaps, Heritance Kandalama, who pushes themselves to be innovative, would truly indulge bojoon.com with their food served in beautiful porcelain dishes. Certainly their excellent Sri Lankan food deserves better presentation. Apart from being well cooked, we are always thrilled to find their buffets filled with true local cuisine, such as the white lily seed kanjee.

Living in an area richly interspersed with lotus and lily groves, they make good use of its produce. Apart from their creamy but light white lily seed kanjee, which can only be described as fabulous, they have a papadam from the lotus flower petal. The petals are well coated in a thick batter and spiced with a dash of chili pieces. Very novel!

Another thing that makes us smile at Kandalama is how the chef always gives a place to local ingredients – especially when imported food items are readily available. It is all part of their culture – to them, it is important that they include the local community in their endeavours. Thus, a significant part of the local community benefits directly from Kandalama. The chef smiles and says that they have been practicing guilt free tourism and responsible tourism long before these phrases came into the common vocabulary. That’s another secret to their culinary success – their motto of procuring from the local farmer as much as possible, has assured them the freshest produce.

The chef, who joined as a junior sous chef and worked his way to the top position of executive chef, has come up with some lovely food items. Some of the loveliest dishes are actually very simple. His jumbo sandwich served with pickled vegetables is one classic example. As the name denotes, it’s an impossibly huge sandwich with one layer of Norwegian salmon and one layer of sardine. Who’d have thought these two would make such an excellent combination?!!!

One word of caution though – the price is also a jumbo!!! At US$ 32.00 it feels too gigantic for a sandwich, but let us assure you that, this is no ordinary sandwich. Just don’t order it for a snack unless you have a hungry companion or two to share, but do make a main meal out of it.

They don’t excel only in their creations, but also in their mastery of international cuisine. Of course, now is the tail end of the elephant season, but if you are going that way to make the most of the remaining time, do order their gazpacho upon returning. Don’t feel like a soup, even a chilled one? Then go for their crushed lime for the quickest way to refresh. Whatever the mood, Kandalama knows how to pamper its guests!

Come on Foodies! Gossip with us on food! We’d love to know your food experiences – good, bad, humorous… basically anything and everything. Just drop an email to info@bojoon.com and the most interesting experiences would be published here. For more information, do visit www.bojoon.com.

Sandamalee de Fonseka is the founder of www.bojoon.com that is both the organiser of action-packed one-on-one cooking programmes with top chefs of Sri Lanka, and the portal of food in Sri Lanka.

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“I like cooking way too much!”

Born in Delhi and having schooled there as well until his college years, Chef G.S. Rana joined Hotel Management and started off with a nine month catering training course in 1986.
After having completed the catering course, he then started on another nine month course, this time at the Green Hotel in Delhi, for a basic training course in 1987.

Afterwards he went to a Catering School where he learnt much more about cooking over the course of one and a half years. Having completed his courses and training, Chef Rana got his first job at the Taj Mahal Restaurant, where he worked from 1987 to 1992.

Chef Rana was part of the Chef’s Department at the Hatza Hotel in Bangalore from 1992 to 1997. He remained at Bangalore for another couple of years; working at Hotel Rama, connected to the Group of Usha, until 2001, and BJN Hotels at the Chef’s Department until 2003. Thereafter he worked at another hotel as an Indian chef until 2005.

He had never worked anywhere out of India before, but since 2005, after having come down to Sri Lanka, Chef Rana has worked as the Indian chef at the Indian restaurant, Saffron, up to date.

“I like cooking way too much!” said Chef Rana, “which is why I came into this industry. Recipes can be brought down from generation after generation, ones that are part of ancient Indian culture and some with which one can apply one’s influence and experiment. The ancient recipes account for more than 60% of the total recipes at Saffron.”

As he further explained, some recipes cannot be changed as they are brought down from generation to generation, but Chef Rana certainly has been experimenting with Moghul, Punjab, Indian, Muslim and even Pakistani recipes. He experiments with Muslim recipes most of the time, depending on what diners want.

For example, Chef Rana said, when South Arabian customers come to the restaurant, he knows that they do not care for food that is too spicy. What they look for is food that is creamy and mild; therefore he is able to come up with something new and creative. It all depends on what the diner desires and where the diner comes from.
South Indians and Sri Lankans love spicy food, which means that one is able to experiment a lot and come up with various sorts of dishes.

“India on the whole has all sorts of food in each province and state; each is different from one another. The diversity helps one come up with new and refreshing ideas while preparing ancient Indian recipes as well,” said Chef Rana.
About 80% of the ingredients and spices used at Saffron are imported from India. Chef Rana says although they may be able to get the same kind of ingredients and spices in Sri Lanka, the quality may not be the same and therefore one would not be able to obtain the desired rich texture and flavour to one’s satisfaction.

Rather than preparing the meals and staying out of sight, behind the doors of the kitchen, Chef Rana mixes with diners at the restaurant and enjoys the positive feedback he gets about his cooking.
His favourite dish is one made out of his own personal recipes – Mutton Roganjosh, a mutton curry dish which is easy to stomach with paratas and naans.

What makes a good chef? Is it his own style in cooking? Or it his ability to adapt to new methods and yet continue to serve authentic dishes?
As Chef Rana said, what makes a good chef is the ability to deliver on one’s learning, the ability to continue to learn, and the ability to provide food that has the ideal flavour and taste.

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