I first read about Priyani Ceylon Cafe, a Sri Lankan restaurant, on FoodGPS’s blog who in turn found out about this hidden gem from an LA Times article. Reading about the dishes in both those articles really intrigued me and although it took a while, I was happy to finally pay a visit there along with some adventurous friends. First, I have to say that I’m glad that I read up on Priyani before dining there. Their menu wasn’t very detailed, but the photos and descriptions of the dishes that I got from FoodGPS and the LA Times article really helped a lot when it came time to figuring out our menu. We also got additional help from husband and wife owners, Nahil and Priyani.

Our meal started with a complimentary trio of deep fried goodness, which included pattis, chicken rolls and fish cutlets.

The pattis were shaped like empanadas with a light flaky crust and filled with curried beef and potatoes.

An interesting thing about the chicken roll is that the chicken filling was first rolled into an egg roll wrapper and than the wrapper was in turn breaded and fried.

My favorite of the three was the fish cutlet, which had a nice kick to it because of the diced red peppers that were mixed into the filling. What took these fried appetizers over the top was the addition of a peppery tomato-based sauce that was just out of this world.

Next up was the Lampreis, which was also referred to as Lump Rice. It’s a mound of rice topped with eggplant curry, onion sambola, shrimp sambola, green banana curry, chicken curry and fish cutlet and then steamed in a banana leaf. This a meal in itself with a variety of wonderful flavors. The onions were wonderfully caramelized and I enjoyed the tartness of the green banana curry. A lovely hit of pungency also came from the shrimp sambola, which was made from shrimp paste. Overall, if you don’t order anything else, this is a must try dish.

Another tasty dish was their Biryani which was mildly spiced; yet, still flavorful fried rice that was cooked with cashew curry and included a side of eggplant curry. There were also yogurt-marinated chicken thighs hidden under the pile of rice and smack in the middle was a roasted egg. That cashew curry added an unexpected, but welcomed sweetness to the rice and because of its marination, the chicken was was delectably moist and juicy.

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