Sri Lanka: Land of tea, gems, elephants, beaches, surfing and civil war. Until we found Taste of Sri Lanka we hadn’t come across a place marketing itself as distinctly Sri Lankan. We came upon Taste of Sri Lanka by accident. As it would turn out, it would be a very tasty accident. Kinda like an explosion at a marinara factory. (matt)

If anything, we tend to find restaurants from other regions posing as Indian. Bangladeshi=Indian. Pakistani=Indian. East African=Indian. And so on.... So it was definitely nice to see them proudly flying the Sri Lankan flag. The foods are very similar, due to the regional clustering, but there are definitely some differences and personally I think the restaurateurs should proudly declare their allegiance rather than clinging to the more familiar "Indian" tag. What would we do if all the japanese, thai, korean and vietnamese places just started calling themselves "Chinese" restaurants. It would be chaos. (ren)

Taste of Sri Lanka is located in the food court of Banff’s largest mall. After visiting Masala, we decided to get some take out dishes. The layout of TOSL is pretty standard for a food court, with 7-8 warming wells displayed for customers to view their curries of choice. There is also a heat lamp closet/display case of samosas and roti. The menu board is rife with various combos (ie. 2 curries, rice and soft drink for a nominal price).

To be fair, none of the items look very appetizing. Perhaps unlike any of the other place we have visited so far, you can get your meal with spiced noodles instead of rice. I’m not sure if this is Sri Lankan custom or not, but it was interesting. They also have some type of Roti Wrap/Chickpea Soft Taco. Intriguing, but we wanted a saucy curry. We like saucy. (matt)

While perusing the menu, I kept my eyes open for trouble. With Sri Lanka comes tamil tigers. But that's not the scariest thing since with tigers come Siegfried & Roy. And with Siegfried & Roy comes casinos. And with casinos comes the mob. And with the mob comes loan sharking. And with loan sharking comes same-day payday loans. However, I looked all around the food court and I didn't spot a Money Mart, so we decided it was safe to order. (ren)

I went with rice and aloo gohbi. This wasn’t quite enough so I had to choose between the butter chicken and the chicken curry. I asked the Quebecois guy taking orders which was better. He said he liked the butter chicken better because ”its not as spicy, and I don’t like spicy”. In light of this, I chose the chicken curry. His female co-attendant made fun of him and questioned his choice of careers. I suspected this wasn’t going to a long term gig for the young Frenchman. (matt)

I went with the butter chicken. Not because it was less spicy. But because I wanted to compare it to other Banff butter chickens. I went with a chick pea curry as my veg option. Not because it was packed with fibre and good for me, but because I don't like ghobi (cauliflower). Also....it's packed with fibre and gives me tremendous gas, and who doesn't like that? (ren)

I can’t even really remember what Ren got. That’s because we didn’t eat at the food court. We decided to courier our meals home to Calgary and eat them the next day. In my case, I heated my take out container for 2 minutes in the microwave and then mixed everything into a homogeneous mess. What resulted was tastastic. There was a distinct cardamom and bay leaf taste. The chicken had an authentic taste and look. It was the kind of chicken that looked like it was killed that day by the farmer, cleaned by his wife, then cooked bone-in, in a giant ceramic or cast iron cooking pot. A little rough around the edge but packed with taste. (matt)

Being more sensible than matty and not wanting to grow breasts from eating food heated in styrofoam in the microwave, I poured my curry mix out into one of my own bowls. Once stirred up my curry was also a mess with the butter chicken portion indistinguishable from the chick pea portion. However, it was a tasty mess. When it was originally poured out, the butter chicken seemed very runny, but the time in the fridge seemed to have done it some good as the excess liquid had absorbed into the rice. At this point it was like no butter chicken I'd ever eaten, but it was a stellar addition to my complete breakfast (which otherwise would have just been an energy drink). (ren)

I wanted to give my meal a 9 but we decided between us that 8 was probably more appropriate. We highly recommend Taste of Sri Lanka, especially if you want to save yourself a little money in overpriced Banff.

Not at the restaurant

• Mathangi Arulpragasam (was and is M.I.A.)
• Elara (King of Anuradhapura)
• Muttiah Muralitharan (Greatest Test Match Bowler Ever)

   

Rating: