Reunion + Birthday Dinner @ Tintagel Colombo

It was my first time having a CNY reunion dinner with family as well as celebrating my birthday in a foreign land. As the rumours have it that I am holidaying with my bf or rather newfound bf is totally bollocks. I wished I had either but the trip to Colombo was to visit my sister whom is on a short term overseas work posting and since the whole family hasn't been to Sri Lanka, we decided to pack our bags and go!

What's a better trip than leeching on the parents? Airfare - check! Accomodation - check! Money - check! And off we flew to Colombo on the 31st January midnight.



The dinner place selected by Yiling was a very beautiful boutique hotel called Tintagel. Tintagel (pronounced as tin-ta-jal) was completed in 1930 where it became the residence of a few influential politicians including Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga whom progressively became a Chief Minister, Prime Minister and then Sri Lanka’s first female President in 1994. Then, in 2005, Tintagel, the family home of the Bandaranaike’s was leased to Udayshanth Fernando by the family to become Paradise Road Tintagel Colombo, a unique private hotel.



The dinner was held at THE DINING ROOM where a chic indoor restaurant is offering the choice of international cuisine. It has a very dimmed setting with leather upholstered chairs paired with black lacquered tables, white linen napery and plum-coloured glassware. It is created for a fine-dining experience.



As starters, we had a Spicy Sri Lankan Crab Soup (Rs 645) where Sri Lankan mud crabs are cooked with curry flavoured broth infused with coconut milk and drumstick leaves. It was a very nice creamy soup that is unique and rarely found in our country. The Avocado, Lobster and Prawn salad (Rs 835) is dressed in a spicy sauce too. I guess everything is spicy in Sri Lanka even when it comes to continental cuisine!



We wanted to try as many dishes as possible. This includes the Crispy Duck with Apricot and Plum sauce, stir fried beans and roasted pistachios (Rs 2145), Fettucine with Lobster, prawns , crabs and spicy sauce (Rs 1485), Braised Pork Belly top with poached egg (Rs 1585) and the Rosemary Roasted Chicken with bacon and pumpkin (Rs 1285) were all commendable.



The Pan fried Red Snapper with rocket pesto risotto and roasted cashew nut (Rs 1795) was a very interesting dish with contrasting tastes and textures due to the tender fish paired with risotto and crunchy pistachio bits.

One thing about this place is that Tintagel doesn't have the alcohol license. Thus, we can't order any alcohol that night with our food. But their mocktails are quite good too as I sampled their Mojito and it's fine with me even without the infusion of alcohol.



We all had a good reunion dinner and it was fun exploring the hotel. It was funny having western food during this time of the year but at least it was something new. The last time the whole family went on a holiday together was more than 8 years ago! The dinner came up to about Rs 18000 which is about USD$180 where there is a 25% tax in Sri Lanka. Note that the prices displayed are all before taxes.

TINTAGEL COLOMBO

65 ROSMEAD PLACE,
COLOMBO 7 SRI LANKA.
T (94) 4602121 / 4602060
F (94) 11 4602168
reservations@tintagelcolombo.com