Licensed to Grill is a street-food stall in Kandy serving up affordable grilled meats – plus wraps, burgers and more. It's an outdoor area, with the meats and wraps prepped as you watch, which is pretty fun given that we don't get many open kitchens in SL.
Food
You could have a more than filling meal under Rs. 500, so it's an absolute steal given that this is focused on meat. With pretty generous sized wraps clocking in at only Rs. 150 – Rs. 250, two of these are enough to sate an extremely hungry person.
We opted for a Tandoori Chicken Wrap, BBQ Chicken Leg and a Beef Kebab, but the latter wasn't available. We then settled for a Beef Wrap instead.
Taking the Beef Wrap (Rs. 250) first, this was served warm and fresh (no surprises there given that they just prepared it). The beef in it was spiced and flavoured, and was present in abundance. However, it lacked a certain tang. A hint of lemon or salt — pickles, actually — would make this perfect.
Same could be said for the Tandoori Chicken Wrap (Rs. 150), in which the tandoori-ness of the meat was rather cut down by the abundance of grated carrots and cabbages. Whilst this makes for a healthy meal, it detracts from the meat.
The BBQ Chicken Leg (Rs. 200) was glorious and charred to perfection. It comes with a miniscule portion of mustard and a somewhat larger portion of ketchup, but it tastes pretty good on its own.
The meat was soft and succulent, but I'd recommend eating it piping hot. I dug into mine after finishing the wrap, by which time the chicken leg had cooled down and would've been much better fresh off the stove.
Service and Ambience
Licensed to Grill's service is stellar, with a really friendly person behind the stove who takes your order, makes your food, then offers to hold on to them until you're done eating what you've got in hand (because there are no tables or anything).
Ambience-wise, you've got a funky red marquee under which there are a few erratically placed plastic seats, and the counter at the end, which is flanked by blackboards displaying the menus and contact details.
One major snag is that they don't give you a receipt, even after asking for one. I mentioned that I needed it for work purposes, but the guy taking care of the bills flatly refused, which is hella weird.
Conclusion
Calling L2G a restaurant would be an exaggeration, but as far as eateries go, this is legitimately good. It is real value for money, and is probably one of the more reasonably priced good food options out there. Their tagline is 'by foodies, for foodies', and they seem to be living up to that.
