Uncles Colombo

There’s a kind of hunger that shows up late in the evening.

Not the polite kind.
The kind that wants something crispy, messy, and deeply satisfying.

In Sri Lanka, that craving usually leads to kukul mas.

At Uncle’s Colombo, we took that familiar comfort and tucked it into something small but powerful.

Buttermilk fried chicken, stacked inside soft curry leaf brioche buns, layered with fiery kochchi sauce and a bright onion and cabbage sambol slaw.

Crispy. Spicy. Slightly dangerous.

Two sliders on the plate,
but somehow they never last very long.

There’s ceremonial Kiribath in the canteen. Obviously. It’s the first day back. But Perera, a creature of habit and poor future-proofing, already dragged Mrs. Perera’s three-tier tiffin carrier halfway across Colombo. A tactical error. But lunch isn’t the real crisis. The existential dread simmering beneath that heavy rotary phone is purely logistical: Where exactly did he stash that last ‘short’ of Gal Arrack before the office party went off the rails? And those foreign bottles that “fell off a truck from Customs”-vanished into the ether, or worse, into the boss’ filing cabinet. These are the questions that haunt a man.

His eyes drift to the new wall calendar. 1984 in glorious colour. A sturdy woman in the paddy fields, smiling like she knows something Perera doesn’t. He appreciates the…agricultural aesthetics. A fine angle. He wonders, idly, what the view is like from the other side of that hay bale. He then wonders if Mrs. Perera would tolerate this particular masterpiece hanging next to her curry pots.

He decides against asking. It’s going to be a long year.

There was a time when food didn’t stop at our doorstep.
A plate would travel next door - carried by a kid, still warm, wrapped in a cloth.
Christmas Eve. Aluth Avurudu. Eid. Vesak. Didn’t matter.

You knew your neighbour’s name.
You knew their smile.
You knew what they cooked better than you knew their politics.

The streets had carols, laughter, the soft clatter of plates being returned - never empty.
It wasn’t charity. It wasn’t tradition for the sake of tradition.
It was community. Simple. Honest. Sri Lankan to the bone.

Somewhere along the way, the gates got higher.
The plates stopped moving.
Now we barely know who lives next door.

This Christmas Eve - maybe we try again.
Fill a plate. Knock next door.
No speeches. No posts. Just food, shared the old way.

Because food was never just food it was how we said you belong here.

There was a time in old Ceylon when people didn’t need weather apps, satellites, or emergency broadcasts to know what the sky was planning. They listened instead to the soft, urgent cries of Wahi Lihiniyo announcing evening rain, to the thick morning mist that warned of an unforgiving afternoon sun, to the strangely generous fruiting seasons that whispered of storms brewing far beyond our horizon. Nature spoke in small, precise languages, and our elders understood every syllable. They’d stack grain, dry fruits, tie bundles of firewood - not out of fear, but out of respect. A quiet pact with the island that raised them.

Last week, as Cyclone Ditwah tore through us and left heartbreak in its wake, that old wisdom feels painfully relevant again. Our thoughts are with every family affected, every life shaken, every home damaged. May you find safety, strength, and steadiness in the days ahead. And maybe, just maybe . . . this is our reminder to listen again - to the birds, the winds, the trees and most importantly to the old Ceylon ways that once helped us prepare for what’s coming. We owe it to this island, and to each other, to regain that wisdom so future storms find us ready, not blindsided.

If Sri Lanka had a national antidepressant, it wouldn’t come in a pill. It’d come fried, spicy, and still staring at you. it would be Isso Badum. The kind of dish that slaps you awake, dusts off your soul, and reminds you why you put up with tropical heat, tuk-tuk fumes, bus wankers and relatives who can’t mind their business.

Picture this: lagoon prawns fried so hard they crunch like they have a personal vendetta, but inside they’re still sweet, juicy, and smug about it. Then you hit that Calamansi, a citrus so sharp it cuts through your sins. Burnt coconut rains down like confetti at a dysfunctional island wedding - smoky, nutty, and weirdly perfect.

And just when you think you’ve got the dish figured out, smoked cinnamon wood chips roll in, adding that “mysterious stranger at the bar” energy. Suddenly your prawns taste like they’ve spent the evening flirting around a campfire.

Wash it down with an ice-cold beer, preferably the cheap stuff that tastes better in sweaty hands. That’s the real magic — simple food, big flavours, zero pretense.

So if you’re at Uncle’s Colombo, don’t be a hero. Order the Isso Badum. Rip, dip, squeeze, crunch.

Life’s too short not to eat things that make you grin like a tit.

Cheers from the smokey side of paradise.