Six courses,
three fires.

String hoppers, crab claw, prawn, cuttlefish, curry leaf and roasted chilli. Comes with a faluda.

Godamba roti, egg, leek, carrot and dark chicken gravy, finished with a roast drumstick on top.

Leek, cabbage, carrot and green chilli with dhal gravy folded through.

Two eggs scrambled straight into the roti on the plate. The plainest thing we make and the hardest to get right.

The standard. Shredded chicken, egg, vegetables and a ladle of curry.

Slow-cooked beef pulled apart into the roti with black pepper and onion.

Bone-in mutton kulambu worked through the roti. Rich, and worth the extra ten minutes.

Chicken kottu finished with melted cheese folded in at the last second. Ordered almost entirely by people under twenty-five.

Chicken, egg and cheese together with extra gravy. No dolphin involved — that's just what it has always been called here.

Chicken, mutton, beef or vegetable, layered and sealed. Raita, brinjal moju and gravy included. Serves four.

Whole lagoon crab and tiger prawns fried hot with basmati, spring onion and green chilli.

Basmati, saffron, fried onion and a leg quarter. Served with raita and gravy.

Bone-in mutton cooked into the rice rather than laid on top. Ask for the shank if there's one left.

Beef braised down until it gives, then layered with rice and fried cashew.

Potato, carrot, bean and cashew, cooked in the same sealed pot as the rest.

Prawn, cuttlefish and fish flakes, without the whole crab. The everyday version.

Egg, leek and chicken over high heat. What most tables order for the children.

Chilli-paste fried rice with a fried egg, chicken and prawn crackers.

Whole bird butterflied and grilled dark. Served with kerala parotta, nool parotta, garlic sauce and chilli paste.

The same bird, half the size, same sauces. Enough for one hungry person.

Thick steak from the Trincomalee boats, rubbed with chilli and lime and cooked over the coals.

Yoghurt and kashmiri chilli marinade, held overnight. Served with onion and lime.

Six tiger prawns, garlic and butter, straight off the skewer onto the plate.

Scored, grilled fast so it stays tender, and finished with black pepper and lime.

Cracked black pepper, roasted coconut and curry leaf, cooked until the gravy goes almost black.

Two lagoon crabs in a thick, dark curry powder gravy. Messy on purpose — the bowl of water is not optional.

Bone-in mutton in tamarind and roasted spice. Thin, sharp and meant for soaking bread.

Dark roasted curry powder, coconut milk, pandan and cinnamon. The one that tastes like home.

Tuna cooked dry with goraka until it's almost black and keeps for days. Sour, hot, very old-fashioned.

Coconut dhal alongside sweet-sour fried brinjal. Ordered as a side by almost every table.

Two kerala, one ghee and one nool parotta on a banana leaf. The best way to try all three.

Layered, slapped and served hot enough to steam when you tear it.

Finished in ghee on the griddle. Order it with the beef pepper masala.

Pulled into threads before it's coiled. Takes the longest and disappears the fastest.

Thin, plain and the base of every kottu we make.

Crisp at the edge, soft in the middle, egg set in the bowl. Evenings only.

Steamed to order with coconut sambol and dhal on the side.

Rose syrup, basil seed, jelly and milk in a tall glass. Free with the seafood idiyappa kottu.

The same, with two scoops of ice cream and cashew on top.

Kithul jaggery custard with cardamom and cashew. Steamed here every morning.

Buffalo curd in a clay pot with kithul treacle poured at the table.

Blended with jaggery and a little salt. Divisive, and we're not sorry.

Thick, cold and over-sweetened, exactly as it should be.

Salt or sweet — say which when you order.

Opened at the table. The only thing here that isn't cooked.