The RoadHouse – Reviewed

A clean, guilt-free kottu experience!

On a lazy Saturday evening, Pulse caught wind of a fairly new food truck that’s anchored itself at the top of Hotel Road, Mount Lavinia, and we just couldn’t resist the chance to go pay it a visit. The RoadHouse is a funky little truck that serves up locally sourced, quality kottu dishes and prides themselves on their cleanliness and fast service. It is literally just a truck with space to do little, but grab-and-go though, so don’t plan on hanging out there. The truck, however, is the cutest thing you ever did see, decorated with slogans and catch phrases that are catchy and definitely Instagramable.

Food

The night we paid a visit, they only had 6 kotthu options, but from their Instagram, one can see that they change up their menu from time to time with additions like wraps, prawns, drinks and Nutella rotti. We were sad there wasn’t too much of a variety, but nevertheless, we dove right in! There are a couple of super-friendly guys who take your orders and make recommendations and a couple more behind the stove taka-taka-ing their way into our hearts.

Roast Chicken + Cream Cheese- Rs. 480

Upon recommendation, we ordered the Roast Chicken and Cream Cheese ’cause apparently it is a crowd favorite and we could definitely see why. Smothered in creamy cheese with chunks of chicken, this dish was a journey of textures. The Cream Cheese is a definite change-up from the regular Happy Cow Cheese triangles and you could see that it made a difference to the dish. We felt like it lacked some flavor though, cause the dish was slightly bland and monotonous, but it was a MASSIVE portion. All of their portions were massive! Enough for like 3 people! So our bundies were happy.

Chilli Beef- Rs. 450

I was surprised to see a solid beef option on the menu which is a definite change-up from the regular chicken kottu. They told us this option could get pretty spicy and recommended we ask to reduce the spice and since we were getting a Nai Miris as well, so we said why not. The Chilli Beef was completely satisfying with bits of red chilli, chunks of juicy beef and the satisfaction of a nice sweet undertone one gets from such chilli dishes. The pieces of rotti were smaller here, and more finely cut when compared to regular late-night-joints and to me, that took some getting used to – cause get on my fork, dammit!! The Chilli Beef was also a slightly oily option but it was my favorite from the lot, no questions asked!

Chicken Nai Miris- Rs. 430

We were warned that this dish could get really spicy but we told them we wanted to feel the heat so they brought it to us with no amendments and we were slightly let down, to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, the dish in itself was delicious with pieces of chicken, an undertone of cheese, topped off with actual pieces of Nai Miris, but there was little to no spice factor. The flavors really did pull through though, with the succulent pieces of meat really adding to the deliciousness of the dish but until one of us decided to bite into a piece of Nai Miris (don’t do this at home, kids) and teared up mercilessly, there just wasn’t enough Miris in the Chicken Nai Miris Kotthu.

Vegetable + Cheese- Rs. 380

Vegetarians rejoice! This option was full of carrots, cabbage and a delicious cheese sauce and you would definitely not miss the meat here. It was again a massive serving and will leave your bundy really happy! At Rs. 380 for a portion, this will definitely satisfy two very hungry vegetarians.

All-in-all we enjoyed our experience at The RoadHouse. The Kottu was made fresh and tasty (as opposed to regular restaurants adding last night’s curries into the mix), the service was fast and efficient and the concept is a sight for sore eyes. With Sri Lanka’s Food Truck culture ever-expanding, we’re glad someone’s paying attention to a range of dishes we can definitely call our own. We’ll make sure to pay them another visit to try out their other options and we recommend you do too!

Have you visited The RoadHouse yet? Let us know what you think about them in the comments below!