The hotel’s cafés. The hotel has 2 cafés: one for guests’ breakfast and dinner, and another across the road on the beach. We had breakfast in the first one; the breakfasts were all the same, and I described them in my previous article about the hotel. We didn’t take dinners, but the guys we met at check-in told us it was just as repetitive, not very tasty and limited in quantity. The beach café is better: you order from the menu at any time, but the cooking isn’t very good. Prices are roughly the same everywhere, so I won’t dwell on them.
All over Unawatuna there is another café every 50–100 metres, both on the beach and along the street. We had lunch in all sorts of cafés: tuna steaks, various seafood salads, tom yum soup (it has nothing in common with a real tom yum, but it’s tasty). For lunch we really liked the Sunrise Seafood Restaurant. The food there was very good.
Dinner: most of the time we went out to the beach and, walking along it past the various cafés, looked at where people were sitting. Outside the cafés and small restaurants there are racks with ice, and seafood is laid out on the ice. We usually went up and checked the freshness, the variety and the price. We tried different restaurants, but the one we liked most was Lucky Tuna. Prices in this café are about 10% higher than elsewhere, BUT!
- Out of all our visits, only once was the seafood not very fresh, and that day we decided to go somewhere else.
- It’s very busy, and sometimes it was hard to find a table for 3 people.
- The cooking is delicious.
How ordering dinner works:
- You can choose seafood from the fridges; they will weigh it and tell you the price including cooking.
- As everywhere, from the menu.
On excursions you won’t really have the time or the chance to choose where to eat, so I don’t see much point in describing that in the article.
Supermarkets: there are very few supermarkets, and mostly you’ll have to drive to them. The supermarkets are ordinary, just like ours, except that you won’t find any alcohol in them.
Alcohol in Sri Lanka is sold only in small liquor shops that look like a stall behind a lot of bars. They are called wine stores; the one closest to our hotel, and to the Unawatuna coast in general, is at this point on the map. Naturally, you can buy alcohol in any café or restaurant, but it will cost much more than in a liquor shop. For example, in a liquor shop beer costs 190 rupees a can, in restaurants 350–450 rupees. So if you decide to drink 1–2 cans during your holiday, there’s no point in paying for transport just to buy those 2 cans of beer. But if you decide to drink more, you can buy, say, a case of those cans and save money. They also have the simply wonderful Calypso red rum. Unfortunately, it’s only available in this country, and I have never tasted a better rum anywhere.
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