Helix Digi Labs
As Hikkaduwa has gained popularity as a surf and sand tourist hotspot, so too has Hikkaduwa's reputation for culinary delights.
Way before it became the touristy town it has become now, Hikkaduwa was famous as a fishing town, with some of the best seafood on the western coast of Sri Lanka. Even today, despite the burgeoning tourist scene, Hikkaduwa seafood is second to none and there’s no better place to sample the seafood than in some of the best Hikkaduwa Restaurants.
If you’re looking for a guide on what dishes to look out for that’ll get you swooning over the local catch AND local flavour, this is the guide for you!
Hot butter cuttlefish, or HBC for short, is an iconic Sri Lankan dish. Originating in the Sri Lankan Chinese Restaurants, where the food is neither Chinese nor Sri Lankan but an impossibly cool mix of both flavours, HBC is a uniquely Sri Lankan dish. Batter-fried cuttlefish dripping in melted butter and spiced amply (this is HOT butter cuttlefish after all), this is a mouth-watering food experience for any.
PC: Dihan De Silva / Instagram
You’re not going to get any more unique Sri Lankan seafood snacks than prawn fritters. There’s any number of street vendors hawking prawn fritters, or isso vadai, as they’re known locally, out on the beaches come dusk and evening, with some even opening their quaint food carts as early as midday. There’s nothing quite like spicy prawns fried into a dhal flour fritter eaten hot on the Hikkaduwa beaches with the sun setting right in front of you.
PC: Gluttonists / Instagram
Everyone in Sri Lanka knows and loves Kottu roti. For the uninitiated: Kottu Roti is a delicious street food of strips of godamba roti that’s finely (and loudly) chopped and mixed with all kinds of vegetables and ingredients to create the most iconic Sri Lankan street food ever. While Kottu Roti is most popularly of the chicken, vegetable and egg variety, in Hikkaduwa, Crab Kottu Roti is not uncommon. After all, if fresh crab meat is available daily, why not make Sri Lanka’s No.1 Street Food that much more unique? A wholly new food experience that you cannot miss.
PC: Isso / Instagram
This classic Sri Lankan dish translates to Sour Fish Curry. Seeped in goraka (brindleberry) paste along with cardamom, cumin, coriander and fenugreek, this dish is an epitome of warm and heart-warming Southern Sri Lankan cuisine. Originating in Ambalangoda as a traditional method of preserving fish in the days before refrigeration was available, Ambul Thiyal is now the quintessential Sri Lankan fish dish that you cannot skip. The goraka lends a mouth-watering tang that coats the fish that’s slow-cooked till it practically falls apart in your mouth.
PC: Fal's Kitchen / Instagram
You haven’t done Hikkaduwa right if you haven’t sat down at a beachside restaurant and dug into a platter overflowing with nothing but the freshest and choicest seafood ever. From jumbo prawns and cuttlefish, to mussels and calamari, as well juicy lobster, seafood platters are well-loved staples at any Hikkaduwa eatery. When the whole town revolves around catching the sun, the sea and the sun in between your toes, you’d be crazy to miss out on a seafood platter. Yes, everyone’s digging in and with good reason!
PC: Citrus Hikkaduwa Resorts Official Website
