Off the coast of High Level Road lies an Araliya Tree. And with that Araliya tree resides a restaurant.
With a parking spot in the middle of the whole thing, Araliya Food Center, or Araliya Cafe (now) is our newest venture into the buth kada scene in Nugegoda. Although it's called Araliya Cafe, the resto isn't necessarily the epitome of what a cafe is. It's actually just another roadside joint to get your rice and curry fix when you're in the area.
Ambience and Service
With space inside and a few tables and chairs outside, the ambience at Araliya Cafe is pretty basic and nothing to rave about. Perfect for when you're looking for a place to get a rice and curry without having to spend too much time, Araliya Cafe is all right.
With Animal Planet being our only source of entertainement, the staff here was all right. Unobtrusive, fast paced and not all together very friendly, but polite, we really had nothing to complain about.
The Food
The food here is pretty much like the food you'd get anywhere else. Rice and curry, parata, wadei and the likes, we decided to get 2 rice based dishes considering how it was lunch time and because their rice and curry looked lit.
The Fish Rice & Curry came as a generous helping of fluffy white rice combined with spicy coconut sambol, creamy cauliflower, tempered cabbage and eggplant.
Whilst maintaining a rather minute state in terms of size, the fish was spiced to perfection and was all in all a success. But, the combined efforts of the caluflower and the coconut sambol didn't work all that well. The coconut sambol albeit a bright orange turned out to be a tad too dry and not all that great. The cauliflower which had been cooked well turned out to be bland as well.
That being said though, the cabbage and herb curry was quite nice. Adding a bit of bitterness via the leaves, we liked it. And the tempered eggplant followed suit. Spicy, creamy and all together lovely, we enjoyed it.
The Chicken Fried Rice when you looked at it as a whole was noting more than meh. The rice had been cooked well and tossed in an abundance of veggies and the chicken had been cooked into a saucy mess which didn't really do much.
If not for the salad and the chilli paste, we wouldn't have really enjoyed this one, unfortunately. Because, while the salad successfully added a bit of a tang to it, the chilli paste succeeded in adding a bit of spice, which was great.
Our total bill for these two came to an even Rs. 480.
Conclusion
We didn't particularly enjoy our experience at Araliya Cafe. The food was nothing more than all right and while we wouldn't complain, we would still be pushing it.
