Toronto, and Scarborough especially, has one of the best Sri Lankan food scenes outside the island itself. If you have never dived in, here are the six dishes I tell everyone to start with.
1. Kottu roti
Chopped flatbread stir-fried on a griddle with egg, vegetables, spice and meat, with that signature metal-on-metal chopping sound. The gateway dish. Find proper kottu roti in Toronto.
2. Rice and curry
The everyday staple: rice with a protein and several small curries and sambols, so you taste a bit of everything. Look for an authentic rice and curry in Scarborough.
3. Devilled chicken
Sweet, spicy, sticky, fried chicken tossed with peppers and onions. Order it to share. Here is good devilled chicken in Scarborough.
4. String hoppers
Steamed rice-flour nests (idiyappam) eaten with curry, pure comfort food. Try string hoppers in Scarborough.
5. Watalappan
The dessert: a jaggery-and-coconut custard, basically Sri Lankan creme caramel. Worth saving room for. Find watalappan in Toronto.
6. Biryani
Fragrant, layered, dum-cooked rice with spiced meat, more aromatic than heavy. A reliable chicken biryani in Scarborough is a great finish to the list.
Start with the kottu, work down the list, and ask for it as spicy as you can handle. Scarborough rewards the curious.
