Lunch at the &Co Pub and Kitchen

A power lunch or a trio of pasta for two for just Rs. 1250!

The &Co is a beautiful Scottish pub tucked away down Hospital Street behind the Old Dutch Hospital in Colombo. &Co has always been my go-to place to down a cold one and chill after a long day at work. The comfy sofas and the mahogany paired with the warm lighting and the many crests adorning the walls gives it the ultimate Scottish pub aesthetic.

&Co is buzzing with the office crowd around lunch time as it’s located in the midst of many an office right around it. To this effect, &Co has decided to carry out a promo for a period of time where they offer lunch for two at Rs.1250! That’s Rs. 625 per person – what a steal!

Allow us to break the promotion down for you; you can either pick a) a power lunch or, b) a trio of pasta. If you pick the power lunch, you and your dine-in partner will be treated to a Sri Lankan rice and curry spread. If you pick option ‘b’ a.k.a. the trio of pasta, you and your lunch +1 will be served a plate each of pasta made 3 ways.

Drinks 

Iced Tea

In addition to the food, this promo also includes a beverage; Iced Tea, to help you tolerate the sunny afternoon and a dessert; ice cream to conclude a feast of a lunch. We weren’t the biggest fans of this iced tea particularly for two reasons. One was that it was not cold enough and a hot afternoon in June calls for extra-chilled beverages. The next was the fact that the strength of the tea was too powerful and left a melancholy taste of bitterness in your mouth after every sip. If you do overlook the strength of the tea and the temperature of the drink itself, everything else about it was satisfactory – the glass and the quantity poured, to the hint of mint amongst your sips.

Mains

Rice and Curry or a Trio of pasta

The power lunch; let’s get down to the real deal. I should add, seeing our big bowl of rice being brought to our table made us squirm in our seats like little kids. I’m always on the look-out for some good rice and curry and the promising look of this assured me that &Co’s rice and curry spread was about to make it to my list… and it did. The massive bowl of rice with two crispy papadum pieces stuck to it was accompanied with smaller servings of chicken curry, kos, batu moju, gotukola sambol, parippu, achcharu and fried fish, cutlets and chicken wings. Reminder, all this for only Rs.1250!

Let’s get down to how each curry tasted – the rice of course was steamed rice, nothing out of the box, nothing to complain of – but the curries were uniquely different from one another. We absolutely loved the chicken curry. The servings of chicken in the bowl had been marinated – possibly for quite some time – because the spices had soaked itself into the meat, right down to the bone. The meat was tender but was cooked up into a yummy Sri Lankan chicken curry.

For those of you that don’t know, kos is Jackfruit in Sinhala. This jackfruit had been boiled till tender and cooked into a thick yellow curry.

Next was the batu moju, which is possibly the yummiest way to cook up brinjals/aubergines.  This batu moju too, was sweet but had a subtle taste of spices in it, too.

The gotukola sambol is a Sri Lankan staple of a salad, &Co’s was nothing short of one you’d make at home.

The achcharu had been left to marinate for days on end – I know so because the vinegar and the spices had consumed the onions and the chilies and left them tasting incredible.

Out of the fried lot, we loved the cutlets and the fish. The chicken wings, we were not a fan of. It was marinated poorly and lacked spice.

Next, the trio of pasta. If you’re not up for rice and curry you can always instead opt for pasta. &Co brings to you not one, but three types of pasta, each. In one big bowl, there’s penne in tomato sauce, there’s spaghetti with chicken and mushroom, and, spaghetti in pesto sauce. Our decisions were split. While Nishara loved the pesto because of the olive oil drizzle in it, I loved the creaminess of the chicken and mushroom pasta. The three pastas were accompanied with a slice of baguette that we mistook for garlic bread. While we wish it was garlic bread, it wasn’t half that bad actually. It was something along the lines of a burnt butter toast and we weren’t particularly mad at it.

Dessert

Choice of ice-cream

Next was the ice cream. You aren’t really given an array of choice and have to settle to either a vanilla, chocolate or strawberry ice cream. We won’t get into detail about the ice-cream because it was store bought, the waiter said so himself. But the bingo here is the fact that you can actually ask for your ice cream to be drizzled with a generous amount of chocolate or strawberry sauce. And if you, like me, NEED nuts in your ice cream, the waiters are never hesitant to run into the kitchen and bring to you a spoonful of delicately chopped cashew nuts. But here’s the catch, you’ve got to ASK for it.

Have you been tried out the lunch promotion at the &Co yet? Let us know what you think of it in the comments below! Is there anything we’ve missed? Since we thought that only a piece of writing wouldn’t do justice to this truly wothwhile experience, we decided to give you a visual one. Click here to watch our video reviewing the all new lunch promo at the &Co.

Tip: Absolutely worth the money spent on a quick office lunch with your mate – or date 😉