Liberty Plaza roundabout area is not really short of eateries. On an albeit frustrating day, due to power cuts and heat, we found ourselves near St. Michales road during lunchtime. Hoping to kill two birds with one stone (and probably cook and eat it too – that's how hungry my colleague was) we decided to drop by Uva Hotel.
Food
Uva Hotel has your typical streetside kadey meals – short eats and very good hoppers in the evening, and they are also renowned for their significant kirimalu kottu. While we were feeling unlucky about the timing and not being able to get their hoppers/kottu, we settled in for some lunch.
The Chicken Fried Rice (Rs. 220) we ordered was a massive helping of rice that two can easily fill up on. The well-seasoned basmati rice wasn't too oily and came with bits of veggies and scrambled egg mixed in.
You can either get it with a piece of roast chicken on the side or have tiny pieces of it scattered about the rice, which is what we did. The rice came with a loonu sambol adding a good crunch while the wambotu moju contributed a little tanginess. We would have liked to see a good saucy malay achcharu here, instead of the sad excuse of two pieces of sauce infused leeks we got.
Anyway, with all of this, the fried rice was quite alright but nothing to rave about.
Since the full portion was quite huge, we got the half-size portion of Rice & Curry with Fried Fish (Rs.150). Even this was hefty portion. Beautifully surrounded by a quality parrippu curry that had just the right amount of seasoning and milkiness, a fresh and crunchy mukunuwenna mallum, deep-fried karawila and a carrot curry that was sweet and flavourful, it was a good plate of buth. We’d have liked to a see more protein on the dish, but even the single fried hurulla was quite good.
We ordered a Milk Tea (Rs. 40) for the heck of it. It was supposed to be a tinkiri tea (canned milk tea) but we couldn't taste much of that milky taste. Whatever the milky taste it had, was overpowered by the strong kahata flavour. We think it's safer to tell them how you like it – with more kahata or less kahata, and they’ll happily make it for you.
Service & Ambience
We received prompt attention from the staff even if the places were almost full of people. You can expect the usual streetside kade ambience here, which of course is not the best there is. But the place was decently clean and apart from a random fly or two (which went away after the power came back and the fans started working) we didn't notice anything else to complain about.
Conclusion
If you are in the area looking for a meal, Uva Hotel is a decent option to do it without making your wallet cry.
