Kotuwa on a Rainy Night

It has been ages since we stepped into Kotuwa. Made a table of four, and N scored a table on a weekend. It was raining the whole week and finally towards the evening, it became a light drizzle. Happily strolled to the restaurant to check out its latest menu items. Spices on a rainy night? Yes please! 

(Parking can be dicey around Dickson Road. You could do Sim Lim Tower and cross the road to the restaurant, or opt for Tekka Place and walk a little farther. We opted for the latter because the carpark is spacious and isn't so gross. LOL The rains stopped for a bit in the night to make for a pleasant walk to and fro.)

We started with panko-crumbed spiced mutton rolls, and then the rest of the food came all at once. BEST. Of course we had to have dhal — this one was red lentils with black mustard. Butternut squash with blackened coconut gravy. It was a beautiful iteration. Meats came in the form of chicken kottu, duck (red) curry, and stir-fried prawns with ginger, green chilli and tomatoes. 

The one thing I was absolutely fixated on, hoppers. I had to have them because these are no good as takeaways. These are what I call, appam. Heh. Except that the Kerala version often uses kallu to ferment the batter, and the Sri Lankan hoppers use yeast. You literally need to have hopper pans to make these, to get those sides crisp so high up. 

Hoppers are usually served during the day for breakfast, and also found at dinner. We had one hopper each. If we weren't greedy to also order a portion of yellow rice flavored with turmeric and ghee, we would have gotten two hoppers each! They went so well with the curries and dhal.

The friends had pre-ordered the crabs; we opted to have it done in garlic butter, green chilli and Ceylonese peppers. At $118++ per portion for one crab, it was worth it because of the spices they cook it with. Mud crabs never tasted better. Honestly, the crab in curry would be delicious, but since we had plenty of curries already, and we had all tried the curry version, we chose a different gravy tonight. It was a good-sized mud crab with two giant pincers. There were two excellent crab peelers at the table. They were super happy to attack it. One wore gloves and the other one simply went bare fingers. Muahahaha.

While the rest had cocktails, I wisely stuck to two drams of Balvenie 12y.o on the rocks, and that was all the alcohol I had tonight. Cocktails always make my stomach churn. Too many complicated flavors in a glass, and all cocktails are wayyy too sweet. The stomach is perfectly fine with spices though, so I don't need to avoid spice-rich and spicy foods at all. Whewwww. 

There were only two desserts on the menu. Ordered both to share since the table loves desserts. Heh. Had a buffalo curd parfait with salted Kithul caramel and roasted cashews, and a Wattalapam tart, a spiced coconut custard with jaggery, pistachio and candied orange. Hmmmm.

Kotuwa certainly doesn't stinge on spices, but it doesn't go big on the fiery peppers in order to make the foods friendlier to palates that might not be able to take it. Sri Lankan curries are generally more fiery than the Indian curries we know. I didn't expect the rice to be polished off completely. Hurhurhur. We might have all eaten a tad too much tonight, but I wasn't too stuffed. No indigestion forthcoming, and I could sleep fine. Whewwww. What a delightful night out with the friends.