For the past few months, the restaurant scene in the suburbs of Dehiwala – Mount Lavinia area has been on a skyrocket. A bunch of new spots have opened up, and us foodies couldn’t be happier. Double Cheese Coffee & Dine on Hill Street is one such restaurant, that we stumbled across wholly by accident.
The Food
The menu at Double Cheese Coffee & Dine is quite extensive, so you’ll have a lot to choose from. They serve a range of burgers, submarines, kottu, rice-centred specialties, pasta, lasagna and even pizza. They also do rice and curry for lunch and at Rs. 250 a packet, they’re only available for take away. As for drinks, they’ve got coffee, tea, milkshakes, smoothies and fresh juices.
We ordered a portion of Seafood Fried Rice (Rs. 450 for S), a plate of Hot Butter Cuttlefish (Rs. 700) and Creamy Penne Pasta with Chicken (Rs. 400).
The seafood fried rice was absolutely delicious. The Basmati rice was cooked well, properly seasoned and not too oily. It had plenty of cuttlefish and prawns tossed in with pieces of eggs, carrots, and spring onions. For couple more hundred bucks you can get the large portion of this rice. The small one was easily sharable between two people.
The hot butter cuttlefish was a tad salty for my taste. It was crunchy, chewy, adequately spiced and flavoursome, but tasted like a re-fried and not freshly made. This is not the worst HBC, but we’ve had better.
Perfectly cooked penne pasta with decadently creamy texture, this dish was our instant favourite. It was garnished with bell pepper, which didn’t do much to the flavour but added colour to the dish. Although we’d prefer more minced chicken on this, it was still super delish. It came with a side of toasted bread.
The Drinks
For drinks, we got a Dark Chocolate Latte (Rs. 400) and a Falooda (Rs. 390). The latte was very chocolatey and had a rich coffee flavour that comes through the fluffy foamy milk.
The falooda on the other hand was slightly too sweet, but had the other basic elements in the right balance. Topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and sprinkled with kasa kasa (poppy seeds), this is a good thirst quencher to beat the heat.
Service & Ambience
The staff at Double Cheese Coffee & Dine is very attentive and friendly. They’re more than happy to assist you to choose the best food that goes with your appetite. Our food and drinks took around 15 minutes to arrive, which is impressive considering the large number of customers they had in the restaurant at the peak hour.
We liked the ambience here. It’s spacious enough to comfortably accommodate at least thirty customers and has a pleasant vibe. According to the manager, the restaurant gets booked all the time for birthday parties and family dinners.
Conclusion
It’s been only 5 – 6 months since their opening but as we could see, it has already become the crowd’s favourite. They’re affordable, tasty and efficient, so if you’re around Dehiwala area looking for a good meal within a budget, this is just the place to be.
