Sri Lankans across the world celebrate the Sri Lankan New Year on Tuesday. The holiday marks the ceremonial end of the harvest season.<\/p>\n
On Staten Island, that means big family gatherings and lots of good food. The borough is home to one of the largest<\/a> Sri Lankan diaspora communities in the world, formed during and after the country’s protracted civil war.<\/p>\n Staten Island\u2019s \u201cLittle Sri Lanka\u201d is renowned for its restaurants and grocery stores \u2013 New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently declared Staten Island the \u201cplace where you can get the best Sri Lankan food in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the teardrop island of Sri Lanka is just a few dozen miles off the coast of southern India, the two countries\u2019 cuisines are very different. While many Indian styles of cooking use cream, yogurt, and clarified butter in their curries, the base of Sri Lankan food is typically coconut milk.<\/p>\n In that way, \u201cit\u2019s almost more similar to Thai cuisine,\u201d said S.H. \u201cSkiz\u201d Fernando, author of the cookbook \u201cRice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking.\u201d \u201c\u200aSri Lankan food really has its own character.\u201d<\/p>\n Fernando said another key distinction is that many Sri Lankan cooks roast their blend of curry spices in a pan before building up the sauce. \u201cIt’s a very deep, complex flavor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the unique way it’s served.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aInstead of eating it in courses as they do in the West, everything is served together on the table and it makes for a very colorful presentation,\u201d Fernando said. \u201cWhen you eat food, you’re not just eating with your mouth, you’re seeing it with your eyes, and that stimulates the taste buds. You’re smelling it. It\u2019s all designed to be like a kind of multi-sensory experience.\u201d<\/p>\n For your own multi-sensory experience, we recommend you check out these five New York City spots:<\/p>\n New Asha<\/p>\n New Asha<\/p>\n Walter Wuthmann<\/p>\n New Asha is the anchor of Tompkinsville\u2019s \u201cLittle Sri Lanka,\u201d and the same family\u2019s been dishing out its spice-packed rice and curries for nearly three decades. It\u2019s a tiny spot, fluorescently lit, the only soundtrack a televised cricket game blaring from the kitchen.<\/p>\n \u201cOur success is only in the home cooking,\u201d said Subhas Chandraboase, one of the restaurant\u2019s owners. \u201cWhen you come, you are hungry, you eat something, you like it.\u201d Subhas told me that after the late television host Anthony Bourdain filmed an episode at New Asha for his show No Reservations, he returned by himself two weeks later for more. New Asha\u2019s menu changes every day, based on what\u2019s fresh and available. To order, you\u2019ll be asked if you want \u201cveg or non-veg,\u201d and the meal goes from there. On a recent afternoon, I had a spicy chicken curry surrounded by a sweet and sour red cabbage stew, sauteed spinach, coconut milk and lentil dhal, and pickled onions. The meal comes with a side of roti flatbread, hot off the griddle. Subhas\u2019 sister Viji makes all the restaurant\u2019s yoghurt in-house, and New Asha\u2019s mango lassi is a perfect pairing for their fiery curries. Finish off your meal with a hot, frothy cup of masala chai.<\/p>\n Lakruwana<\/p>\n Lakruwana<\/p>\n Walter Wuthmann<\/p>\n About a mile south of the Staten Island ferry terminal lies Lakruwana. The restaurant\u2019s giant brass doors are a portal to another world; the place is absolutely saturated with Sri Lankan art and handicrafts. Pottery, paintings, massive woven ceremonial fans, and hand-carved raksha masks line the walls and hang from the ceiling. An upbeat tourism video plays on a loop on a tiny TV above the front door. But the main attraction here is the weekend buffet.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re new to Sri Lankan food, this buffet may be the best place to start. The restaurant makes a wide variety of dishes and keeps its clay pots hot and full. Some stand-outs are the \u201cdevilled\u201d chicken, a kind of chicken stir-fry in a sticky chili sauce, the sweet caramelized eggplant, and the pol sambol, a garnish made of flaked coconut, red onion, chili powder, and lime juice. There\u2019s even a dessert bar with homemade tapioca pudding and mango mousse. The buffet is $22.95 a person, but come prepared \u2013 Lakruwana is cash-only.<\/p>\n Randiwa<\/p>\n Randiwa<\/p>\n Walter Wuthmann<\/p>\n You\u2019ll have to travel deeper into Staten Island for the strip mall gem that is Randiwa. Nestled between a pho restaurant and a gym, Randiwa serves up Sri Lankan staples and also has a buffet on Sundays. Their signature dish, though, is their banana leaf-wrapped lamprie.<\/p>\n Lamprie, or lamprais, is a dish that traces its origins back<\/a> to Dutch colonial rule of the island. It incorporates some of the elements of lemper, a sticky rice and banana leaf dish from Indonesia. Lamprais consists of rice cooked in stock, a meat-based curry, various stews and relishes, a meatball or fritter, and sometimes a deep-fried hard-boiled egg, all wrapped up and steamed in a banana leaf. The family that runs Randiwa says their lamprie recipe has been passed down for over 300 years. Those generations of knowledge and technique are on full display: Randiwa\u2019s lamprie is full of deep, smoky flavors. A mild cashew curry balances out the spice of the meat. Sweet caramelized onion sambol wonderfully contrasts the richness of the stock-simmered rice.<\/p>\n Lanka Grocery and New York Lanka<\/p>\n Lanka Grocery<\/p>\n Walter Wuthmann<\/p>\n Little Sri Lanka is home to two small Sri Lankan grocery stores on opposite sides of Victory Boulevard. They serve up tastes of home to Staten Island\u2019s roughly 5,000<\/a> Sri Lankan residents, and offer opportunities for newcomers to explore unique imported products. Lanka Grocery opened first and its windows are so plastered with Sri Lankan flags and decals you can barely see inside. Its aisles are chock full of Sri Lankan curry powders, pastes, sauces, tea, cookies, and frozen food.<\/p>\n Across the street, New York Lanka grocery is a bit smaller but carries a similar variety of imported goods. Both stores carry fresh produce you won\u2019t find at ShopRite \u2013 like banana flower, green papaya, and bitter gourd. If you\u2019re passing through, stop in either and grab some crunchy lentil murukku or treacly-sweet milk toffee, and a box of premium Sri Lankan tea for good measure.<\/p>\n Sigiri<\/p>\n Sigiri<\/p>\n Walter Wuthmann<\/p>\n If you can\u2019t make it out to Staten Island, there\u2019s a great Sri Lankan restaurant in the East Village called Sigiri. This second-floor, cash-only joint has a wide-ranging menu, from chicken curry to biryani.<\/p>\n One specialty is the kotthu roti, a kind of street food. That\u2019s roti flatbread that\u2019s chopped up like noodles and then stir-fried with chicken or beef, vegetables, and a spicy curry sauce. If you\u2019re feeling really brave, order the cheese-drenched kotthu, Sri Lankans\u2019 favorite late-night snack.<\/p>\n