Located at: Cinnamon Grand, 77 Galle Road, Colombo 03, Sri Lanka

Visited on: 13 September, 2022

Noodles at Cinnamon Grand serves a variety of East Asian dishes that range from Singaporean to Thai, Vietnamese and Japanese. They do a pretty good job with their laksa, but today we were going to taste a few other dishes.

We started off with a couple of their mocktails; Kiwi Punch – kiwi purée, passion cordial, lime juice (LKR 850) and Strawberry Fizz – strawberry purée, lime juice, Sprite (LKR 850). Both were quite sweet, but refreshing. We also ordered a Martini Milano – gin, dry vermouth, white wine, Campari (LKR 1,900), which was mild on the palate and refreshing, too.

The first of our two starters was Gyoza (LKR 1,800). They have an option of chicken, beef and shrimp for these Japanese steamed dumplings, and we went with chicken. They were as good as dumplings get. Meaty, chewy and moist, obviously fresh out of the steamer.

The second starter was Ebi Tempura (LKR 2,600), which was excellent. Sizeable crunchy prawns in a perfectly crisp and light batter, and the tangy passion sauce provided a beautiful accompaniment to them. Together, they were a good match that made a great starter.

We tried two of their namesake dishes for the mains, the first being Spicy Thai Rice Noodle with Pork (LKR 1,900). This came in the form of wok fried vermicelli noodles with a generous serving of pork loin mixed into it along with some veggies – carrots, tomatoes and leeks. The noodle by itself was delicious, and the pork was well-seasoned. It was all the more satisfying that the pork barely had any fat in it.

Their Wok Fried Rice Noodles with Seafood (LKR 2,900) was a pad Thai-like dish with the thicker, flat sen Chan noodle. It had a mix of prawns, squid and fish tossed in with bok choy and bean sprouts. While I would have liked for there to be more bean sprouts, the dish as a whole was delicious. The noodle was cooked to perfection and not too thick, and it had a lovely sauce that really brought everything together.

Our third choice of mains was Tamarind Prawn (LKR 2,600). This included several crunchy jumbo prawns with cauliflower, carrot, onion and chilli in a luscious and mouth-watering tamarind sauce, accompanied by a cup of vegetable fried rice. The rice was herby and tasty, and went very well with the tamarind sauce which was quite the rice-puller. A very satisfying combination indeed.

For dessert, we tried their Molten Dark Chocolate Lava Cake – accompanied by caramel ice cream (LKR 1,300), Chilled Mango Soup – mango purée with coconut ice cream (LKR 900) and Nashi Pear – anise poached pear with warm sake and chocolate sauce (LKR 900). All of the desserts were generally good, but perhaps had some room for improvement – in comparison to their pretty much flawless appetisers and mains. The ice cream on the first two desserts had melted quite a bit, though, during their long wait on the pass.

The lava cake was good, not too sweet and therefore a good base for the thick, molten lava that oozed out as it was broken open. The ice cream definitely had a bit of a caramel flavour to it. I might have preferred a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream with some caramel drizzle instead, but this worked fine, too.

Mango purée and coconut ice cream always make for a great combination, and Noodles’ Mango Soup dessert was decent as the flavours worked well together naturally.

I quite liked that the Nashi Pear wasn’t too sweet. In fact, the flavours of sake and chocolate were so integrated into each other that they were barely discernible. The sauce definitely gave off a nice flavour of anise, but – in my opinion – could have been thicker and less in quantity. Still, an enjoyable dessert.

The desserts did not amaze, but they did not spoil our overall dining experience either. So, considering that we quite enjoyed the scrumptious appetisers and delicious mains – which definitely outshone the desserts – I’ve gone on to give Noodles a 4.5 yummy rating.

Yummy Rating: 4.5 / 5.0