Green Grass, right along with Cosy's, has street cred for good food in Jaffna. In a dry, hot city where there's plenty of saivas and just a handful of restaurant-grade eateries, Green Grass conjures up soothing visions of a much cooler environment. Not branching off much into Chinese and all that, they have solid vegetarian options and pretty good Sri Lankan and Indian cuisine.
Food
Deciding to stick with vegetarian fare, we ordered bamboo pittu, string hoppers, and poori. The menu said that we'd get 3 pieces of pittu for Rs. 480, which I thought was really decent until it came to the table and turned out to be a single unit cut into three pieces. Rather disappointing, but given that we were sharing a bunch of other food, it was enough to get by.
The pittu was quite good, especially when combined with the Paneer Masala (Rs. 290) which despite the masala had a slightly sweet tinge to it.
The paneer was soft, slightly milky, and as good as paneer bathed in spice can get (which is quite good).
We got about 2-3 pooris for Rs 300, all nice and crispy, but the one at the bottom inordinately oily. Pooris are nice though, and it's not all that common a dish, so we'd recommend trying it out.
The string hoppers (Rs. 450) were prepared well too. There's nothing much more to say about idiapppa though. It was good, that's about it.
Being more thirsty than hungry (that Jaffna weather is incredibly dehydrating!) we went all out with the drinks. We got two Lassis (one sweet, one orange flavoured) both priced at Rs. 250 each, an orange juice, and a mixed fruit juice, both costing Rs. 220 each.
The best in my opinion was the orange lassi, which was nice and thick without being too dense, and incorporated both the orange and yogurt quite nicely. The sweet lassi wasn't particularly sweet or flavourful, and tasted a bit watered down, as did the orange juice.
Ambience and Service
You can expect outdoor seating arrangements with a faux beachside vibe, little tables with umbrella like structures, low lights, and lots of mosquitoes. There are also a few adorable puppies and cats running around. It's a nice place, but they seem to be a little understaffed as there were only one or two waitstaff over the course of our meal.
Despite service being terribly, terribly slow (about 15-20 minutes wait time before someone came to take our order, and another 20 minutes or so for our food to arrive), the staff are friendly and attentive when they finally do come over. They make up for the slowness by their hospitality and concern, which is nice.
Conclusion
Food's a bit on the pricey side when you think of the prices of stringhoppers and pittus, so maybe try something else instead. The food's quite good though, authentic as it gets. Take a book or something along so you don't get bored waiting for your order to arrive. It's a pretty nice place for a chilled night out.
