‘ Does everything really need to be Chinese ? ’

As we lowered our heads and entered through the wide opened mouth of a dragon, We were greeted with the usual homely smiles that we are used to followed by the usual ‘ enda miss ’. The interior décor was very much oriental and very red. Two large dragons seemed to hug the walls on either side of us. The typical red ball like lanterns hung from the ceiling, its tussles swaying to the blowing from the fan. Even more amused were we to hear local artiste Sunil Perera blaring out his chart topper “ Lindha Langa Sangamaya ” we soon realized we were made to feel in China right in the middle of Sri Lanka. The Menu card was laid before us and as our eyes ran up and down the wonderful spread, we realized the comfort of being able to talk and know what actually the dishes consist, and not bothering to come into conclusions what on earth tom-yang, ban fu-zhu, or jin jiao is. Not only we were explained as to what each dish consist of but also recommend the ideal blending of dishes for that perfect meal. We settled for rice, chop-suey, devilled chicken and most favoured dish kang-kung with shreds of chicken, ( although sinhala word for a kind of spinach, sounds very much Chinese we thought at that point),. After much waiting, our spread was laid before us, The flavouring and aroma was simply appetizing. The food tasted very much Chinese to us, although we really do not know as to how they managed to get the real or close to real flavour. We put it down to basic training from a Chinese culinary expert. The Main meal vanished rather rapidly, we were feeling stuffed and seams bursting, again our helpful waiter came to our rescue recommending ‘ lu-cha ’ when asked what it was, a wide grin followed by “ that is Green Tea madam – that is good to get rid of that stuffy feeling after a heavy meal ”. “ OK bring whatever lu-cha you got ” we said feeling really ballooned with food. Lu-cha indeed was great, within a couple of minutes we were feeling lots better. Having settled the bill we walked out, at this point even lowering our head to walk out of the entrance, seemed tiring. So much taken up, we looked up at the name board to make a note of the name for a probable next visit. One look made us to break into loud guffaws and it was quite certain that everything really need not be Chinese after all. Spread across the entire floor the building was the name of the quaint little place “ Ekanayake Chinese Restaurant ”