Located at: 525 Union Place, Colombo 07, Sri Lanka

Visited on: 02 Sep, 2017

The first thing I noticed upon opening my packet of Chicken Lumprais (LKR 500) from BreadTalk was that it had an egg – something that most places, including VOC Café by Dutch Burgher Union, tend to omit nowadays. I’m not sure over what reason this omission is made, but I sure like mixing the element of boiled yolk into my lumprais. It’s something that I miss here, and seeing it brought back memories of the good old days in Dubai where Friday (the weekend there) was lumprais day. Oily as the rice was over there, the egg was never compromised.

I also noticed a sizeable piece of chicken, which was nicely seasoned. Not too spicy, but tender and well flavoured. The rest of the elements – fried ash plantain, fried brinjal and seeni sambol tasted alright, but were present in small quantities when compared with the quantity of rice. In addition, there was a fish cutlet of average size. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I do like a decent serving of belacan in my lumprais. The portion in this packet was so slight, it had more or less got lost among the chicken and ash plantain. And it tasted more of desiccated coconut than shrimp paste, which was disappointing and didn’t do anything to enhance the overall flavour of the meal. The rice had absorbed the essence of the spices well, with the aroma and taste of star anise coming through beautifully, so much so that you could nibble on it by itself. Not being very oily meant that one could nibble on a little extra rice  with a slightly lesser pang of guilt (yes, it’s carbs, but it’s not every day!).

Lumprais was all we took away from here today, hence the quick review. It’s a pretty decent choice to have now and then. But – if I am to compare – there is something about VOC Café’s lumprais that, simple as it is, feels like a happy place. For which reason I might be slightly biased towards it. More on that later.

Yummy Rating: 3.5 / 5.0