On Friday evening we went out for a meal at the Palmyrah Restaurant, situated at the Hotel Renuka on Galle Road. This was our second visit to the restaurant, our first having been almost 12 months ago. Since then the hotel and restaurant went under some refurbishment and it was only in the last month or so we had noticed it was open again.
The Palmyrah restaurant is situated in the southern most of Hotel Renuka's two buildings. You get to it by going down the stairs opposite the entrance doors in the lobby. At the time we arrived, around 19:30 there were only a couple of tables taken out of the 20 or so in the restaurant. We were served with a drinks menu within a minute or so of being seated and both my wife and myself opted to drink 3 coins lager. The waiter was prompt to offer us the food menu which offers mainly Sri Lankan food but there is a good choice of western style meals too. The Sri Lankan food was Jaffna based according to the menu, which also explained that the Palmyrah was a plam tree that groows freely in the Jaffna region of Sri Lanka.
The waiter turned up promptly once we place the menus down on the table. I ordered the crab meat curry (whole crab curry was also available) and some saffron rice and my wife ordered the Fillet Steak Princess, medium rare. Whilst we were waiting for our meal we were served with what can only be described as a sort of spicey bovril. It came in a small cup and was accompanied by two varieties of popadoms, plain and spicey. When I asked the waiter waht the liquid was he said a name that sounded like Rassim. Perhaps some of the Sri Lankan readers of my blog can hazard a guess as to what it actually was? My wife was not keen on it but I really like it. The popadoms were excellent. Both were complimentory. Within around 15 minutes the food arrived. My meal was very pleasant, if a little on the small side but then generally with Sri Lanka food you order several different dishes to go with the main rice dish unlike the single one I ordered. My wife said her steak was cooked to perfection and her portion was too large to finish.
During the course of the meal music was playing in the background at a volume it was easy to talk over. The waiters were very attentive without fawning over us. In fact the service was so good I left a tip even though there was a service charge added to the bill (along with the usual government tax). The only blemish was it took two attempts to get the bill and it arrived at least 15 minutes after we first asked for it. A minor detail though. The bill for the meal & drinks came to around 1700 rupees (around £9)
In summary an excellent restaurant where we will come again without hesitation.