Sri Lankan food is the most underrated cuisine in Asia. Rice and curry, kottu, hoppers, and the street food you'll dream about after you leave.
The national meal is rice and curry. You get a mound of rice surrounded by small bowls — dhal (lentil curry), a fish or chicken curry, a vegetable dish, a sambol (the coconut sambol, or pol sambol, is the one you'll crave later), and papadams. It's simple, nutritious, and every family makes theirs differently. The best version I've had was at a roadside place in the hill country where the woman cooking brought out seven small bowls and didn't speak a word of English. No menu, no prices, just incredible food. It cost $1.50.
Kottu roti is the people's food. A flatbread is chopped up on a hot griddle with vegetables, egg, and your choice of meat, all mixed with a scraping sound that's the background music of every Sri Lankan street. It's not elegant. It's delicious. It's the thing you eat at midnight after a long drive. Hoppers are the breakfast star — bowl-shaped pancakes made from fermented rice flour, crisp on the edges and soft in the middle. An egg hopper has an egg cracked into the center. A string hopper is vermicelli-like steamed cakes. They all come with curry and sambol on the side.
Street food worth seeking: isso vade (shrimp fritters), kottu (everywhere), samosas from a cart, and the fruit stalls selling king coconut water (thambili) for 50 cents. Drink it straight from the coconut. Avoid salads and raw vegetables from street stalls unless you've built up the stomach for it. Drink bottled or filtered water only. And never underestimate the spice level — Sri Lankan food is hot in a different way than Thai or Indian. It builds. Eat cautiously on day one. Go all in on day three.