Margie's Kitchen is a home cook in Mount Lavinia that specializes in Dutch Burgher and Portuguese influenced local dishes. While they offer a decent variety, most of it revolves around pork. Their brilliant black pork curry is the coup de grâce.
The Food
Margie's Kitchen has actually been around for a while now with some serious street cred in Mount Lavinia for serving up tasty Burgher cuisine. Going through Margie's menu, the smile on my face grew wider and wider seeing the multitude of pork-based offerings. At the time of this writing, they've got a special Rugby World Cup menu, so we went ahead and tried more or less all of it, with the exception of a couple of dishes. Their prices are also very reasonable, with our entire order coming in just under Rs. 3000 for a bunch of stuff that was eaten among five people.
We got two sets of their cheese toasties: bacon & egg (Rs. 300) and black pork & gouda (Rs. 350). These were actually pretty close to grilled cheese sandwiches, only better since it's got bacon and pork in it as well. Both were on point in terms of flavour with the good balance of seasoning and spice with a bit of karapincha thrown in there as well. The bacon & egg would make for a great breakfast sandwich but the black pork was our pick of the two. We'll go into detail about the black pork curry down the line, but combined with the creaminess of the cheese makes it that much better.
Next up was the bacon and onion roll (Rs. 400 for 3) which was pretty much the only one of the six dishes we tried that we weren't crazy about. Again that bacon and onion filling was actually very tasty, with a slight creaminess and crunch from the sauteed onions. Rs. 400 for 3 sounds a bit pricey but these were quite large, almost double the size of a regular bakery roll. The issue here was the roll itself which was overcooked and a bit on the soggy side, so it didn't have that texture we were looking for. But we still ended up finishing it on the merit of that filling.
One of their more interesting items is the thatti paan range, which is essentially a stuffed roast paan. We tried out the pol sambol & egg (Rs. 300) as well as the black pork (Rs. 450). My mom makes a killer pol sambol, which I'm sure is the case with most households, so, for my parents to say that this pol sambol was excellent is a legit mark of approval.
Vibrant orange colour, plenty of chilli, and a good balance of acidity from the lime, make this one of the best pol sambols we've had in while. You can't see it in the photo but there's also a good amount of boiled egg salad behind the pol sambol which marries brilliantly with it and balances out that heat. The only issue with this is that it's a bit difficult to eat so be prepared to go all in on that roast paan.
The highlight of the meal, however, was the black pork curry (Rs. 1300 for 500g) which is easily among the best we've had. I'd go so far as to say that this trumps even the likes of DBU and Mythi's. This one is all about balance with a bit of heat from the chillies, the texture and colour from the ground goraka, a bit of ginger and garlic, all of it binding perfectly to the beautifully cooked, tender curry pork.
Ordering & Delivery
The great thing about Margie's Kitchen is that they don't require orders to be placed a day in advance. If you're in the Mount Lavinia area you can pick up the orders from 51C, Huludagoda Road. But they also deliver to Colombo 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 as well as Dehiwala, Nugegoda and Nawala with an added Rs. 200 for delivery. You can contact them on 773507454 to place your order.
Conclusion
Margie's Kitchen offers just what we look for in a home cook: good food, hearty portions and reasonable prices. If you consider yourself a pork enthusiast, their black pork curry is a must-try.
