Dinner for 1 with beer: £20.00

Since I spend so much time in the UK I figured it was about time for me to get over a big fear – driving on the wrong side of the road.  I had a long weekend to Devon planned which required me to break free of public transportation and to make sure I would be a complete menace to the motoring public I scheduled a 2 hour driving lesson in London.

Turns out driving in the UK is really just not a big deal.  I managed just fine driving around central London in a stick shift – no stalls, no wrong turns.  And strangely I can parallel park like a pro here – which is something I am a total failure at back home in New York.  So to celebrate my not having damaged the car or any pedestrians I wanted to treat myself to something really spicy and fantastic.  I couldn’t get string hoppers out of my mind so I looked for a Sri Lankan restaurant reasonably close to my flat.

Sekara is located near Victoria station on fairly deserted section of Lower Grosvenor pl.  This was probably not the best neighborhood to look for quality Asian food but I just did not have the energy to travel farther South or East so I figured I would give it a go.

The interior is pretty ho hum with the exception of the spectacularly cheesy mall art on the walls – apparently all for sale.  I considered a few velvet paintings while mulling over the menu.

Vadai

I started with the vadai which are lentil patties were described on the menu as succulent.  I’ve had them before and they can be excellent.  These awful little nuggets were so dry that I really did nearly choke on them.  Not something I would order again here.

For my main I ordered white potato curry with sting hopper and pol sambola.  For those who have no idea what it was that I just wrote string hoppers are made from rice noodles and pol sambol is a mixture of fresh coconut and chillis that is pretty commonly served with Sri Lankan food.  I also had an order of okra.

White Potato Curry with String Hopper with Pol Sambol

The potato curry was so unbelievably bland that I dumped the entire dish of sambol into it.  Unfortunately the sambol was also utterly without flavor.  The okra was the highlight but its not a good meal when your side dish is the main event.

In a town with many excellent options for Sri Lankan food I will be looking elsewhere the next time I have a craving for string hoppers.

Book I was reading:  A History of Japan

Sekara
3 Lower Grosvenor Place
London, SW1W 0EJ