Located at: Cinnamon Lakeside, 115 Sir Chittampalam A. Gardiner Mawatha, Colombo 02, Sri Lanka

Visited on: 18th February, 2023

It was a quiet afternoon at Royal Thai and we started off with a few thirst quenchers that pepped us up for the meal ahead. My choice was Little Bit of Everything – orange, mango, pineapple juice and lychee syrup (LKR 900). This was a truly refreshing mocktail with a wonderful tropical feel to it. The little lychee pieces that you get every now and then as you sip along are like little pops of delight that make the drink all the more enjoyable. The other two beverages in the image below are Rossini – strawberry purée topped with sparkling wine (LKR 1,500), a fun and bubbly cocktail laced with the fruity flavour of strawberry, and Hurricane – dark and white rum, passion fruit purée, orange juice and grenadine (LKR 1,800), which was also enjoyably fruity, I am told.

We then ordered some Tom Yum Goong – spicy prawn soup with Thai herbs (LKR 2,600). The soup was spicier than usual, but had its characteristic kaffir leaf and galangal-infused taste that made the broth a great appetiser. It came with three large prawns and plenty of mushroom halves.

The Por Pia Pak – vegetable spring rolls (LKR 1,400) were crisp and had a tasty filling, but were a bit oily – as was the fried kankun garnish. However, the sweet chilli sauce complemented the spring rolls well and made the starter an enjoyable one nonetheless.

Their Som Tum Mung Sa Vi Rat – raw papaya salad with peanuts (LKR 1,100) was as good as always. Perhaps a slightly rawer fruit might have been more ideal. However, this did not hamper the overall experience of the dish in any way.

We picked their Pla Gao Nueng Manao – steamed grouper whole fish with lime and chilli dressing (LKR 5,350). This is one of our favourite styles of having steamed fish, and this dish definitely did not disappoint with its tangy, mouth-watering dressing and perfectly steamed fish.

While the grouper was great, Royal Thai’s Panaeng Gai – chicken in thick red curry and peanut (LKR 2,400) was probably the catch of the day for us. It was excellent. A wonderfully rich curry that was aromatic from the coconut milk as well as the thick curry leaves that were in it. The peanut unassumingly added a wonderful taste and texture to the otherwise smooth curry. Perfect with rice, perfect with bread, perfect with just about anything.

We went with some Kao Suay – steamed Thai rice (LKR 800) to accompany these dishes and round up the main meal.

Cinnamon Lakeside’s presentation of their desserts is usually a stunning affair. And it was no different with the two desserts that we tried out. The first was Date Pudding (LKR 1,000). Apart from the fact that the pudding itself tasted great, the date syrup that had been poured on it was a perfect match for the pudding, being not too sweet and not too thick. The perfectly done meringue ‘cigar’ (if I may call it that) was a head-turner, and the beautiful lotus root-like tuile that sat between the pudding and ice cream was a great addition both visually and texturally. The dessert came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a mint leaf garnish.

The second dessert, Mango Pudding (LKR 1,400) had an interesting flavour combination of mango pudding topped with mango sauce, and coffee cream. I don’t recall having tasted this combination before, but found it to be interesting in a decent way. This, too, had a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a disc of sponge.

Overall, this visit turned out to be yet another satisfying one at Royal Thai.

Yummy rating: 4.5 / 5.0