Breakfast At Isso.

Colombo's isso central – Isso is serving breakfast now. My alarm clock is a constant reminder of who I am not – a morning person, but this is all the motivation I needed to get up early on a Sunday morning.

At the moment, Isso's breakfast spread is available at their Green Path outlet only. If you manage to get there no later than 11.30am, you'll be able to bask in the glory of some freshly prepared hoppers, and of course, isso curry to pair them with.

The Breakfast

The breakfast menu here is pretty simple and straightforward – Sri Lankan, and Western. We ordered them both.

Priced at Rs. 590, the Sri Lankan Breakfast comes with an Egg Hopper, and two Signature Hoppers of your choice, accompanied by three condiments – seeni sambol, pol sambol and kiri hodi. You have the choice of opting for an add-on if you like – Fish curry (Rs. 290) or Prawn curry (Rs. 390). We went with the latter.

Isso has three kinds of Signature Hoppers – Karapincha, Cheese and Beetroot – we opted for the first two.

Crispy on the edges, and with a soft middle, the hoppers were good as it can get. Lured by the magical aroma of curry leaves, the Karapincha Hopper was our favourite out of the lot. The leafy-milky flavour combo was simply brilliant, and we couldn't just take our hands off it.

With a slice of cheddar cheese stuck to its middle, the Cheese Hopper was good too. The significant, sharp odour and the flavour of cheddar really worked out well with the milky flavours of the hopper.

All these, get better and better with the condiments – a swirl of sweetness from seeni sambol, a little heat from spicy pol sambol, while the rich, creamy kiri hodi smoothens up everything.

However, the undeniable star of the meal was this Prawn Curry. Around 5, 6 chewy, well-cooked, sizable prawns swimming about in a gravy gushing with every kind of spice that you'd expect to taste in a Lankan prawn curry, it was simply the best. Enrichened with bits of garlic, karapincha, rampe, onions and tomato, this gravy wasn't overly creamy, but carried a delightful curry flavour. Thanks to having soaked up all that curry goodness, the prawns were bursting with flavours too.

The right curry would vanish every bit of carb on your plate, and fill up your tummy with it, which is exactly what happened with this isso curry. We swept every ounce of this gravy with our hoppers, and then with a freshly baked Garlic Roast Paan (Rs. 290) which we ordered separately.

If you're looking for a flavour explosion, load your hopper with pol sambol, and seeni sambol and dunk it in the two gravies – you can thank us later. The English Breakfast (Rs. 690) we tried at Isso was pretty basic. Comprised of two sliced of well-toasted bread (cut in half), two nicely cooked sunny-side-up eggs (you can choose how you want your eggs), a piece of chicken ham, a grilled tomato, two chicken sausages, and the helpings of strawberry jam, President butter and baked beans, it was alright – especially for the given price. True that it's called an English Breakfast, but would have been nicer if they can add the unique Isso zing to it, and make it more Isso-like.

*Pictured above – Milo Dino (left), Superberries – Purple (right)

To wash these down, you can always go with Isso's Milo Dino – which is essentially the BEST Milo Dino in Colombo or choose from the range of The Berry Company drinks.