Cafe Asiana is an established affordable restaurant down Hill Street that, as the name suggests, serves Sri Lankanized Asian food – their portions are huge and their seafood is spicy and delicious.
Service & Ambience
Cafe Asiana is smack in the middle of the busy hub that Hill Street has become, what with its host of shops and biriyani corners. You get some folks here on their lunch break and especially family gatherings during dinner. The ambience is nothing to speak of, your typical middle class restaurant, and the service was alright – our waiter was particularly obliging when we asked for recommendations.
The Food
We ordered a ‘small’ Asiana Special fried rice for Rs. 525 and I swear, the big plate you get is enough to split among four people. The fried rice was rich with egg, veggies and prawns, wasn’t too oily, and was pretty good.
We also got their hot butter cuttlefish plate (Rs. 700) and the recommended chilli chicken plate (Rs. 610) – again, there was a lot, and you could share these among three. We loved the chicken and prawns – both plates were tossed in generous chunks of tomatoes, capsicums, onions and chillies, and were pretty oily. The chilli chicken was especially spicy, the cuttlefish was hot and a little sweet, and the bit of gravy tasted great with the rice.
The ‘Mango Zingo’ (Rs. 290) or mango smoothie simply tasted like mango juice, so perhaps you might as well get the mango juice instead. We ordered the brownie sundae (Rs. 295) for dessert, which included two scoops of ice cream planted in the middle of plenty of broken down brownie cake and cashew. It was an interesting presentation, and tasted like your average ice cream and brownie – good enough, we thought, considering the price.
Conclusion
Cafe Asiana serves some pretty good food, the seafood is super spicy and the portions are big. Also considering how cost-efficient the place is if you take a crowd with you, it’s a great place to fill your belly at.
