Wow Hopper Hut. Where do I begin? The food here was awesome. My sister and I visited Toronto recently and I had started a thread in the Toronto Talk page asking for suggestions on restaurants to try. Kat F chimed in to say that she has a List Of Things For New Yorkers To Do In Toronto list. Hahhah! It's Yelp sarcasm. Very funny.
But wait. She wasn't kidding. She really does have such a list. And it's got 28 items on it. At the time of this review, Kat F has 101 lists. She is out of control with those lists. If it is possible to have lists of lists, she'd probably have a few of those, too.
And so it was, from this list I picked out Hopper Hut. I have never had Sri Lankan food before, and neither has my aunt, two cousins, and my sister. Altogether there were five of us ready to try Sri Lankan food for the first time. We had no idea what to expect. A few of us thought it would be like Indian food. But there are different regional varieties of Indian food, I maintained. And I wondered, to what kind of Indian food exactly would it be similar? We arrived at the restaurant on a Tuesday night and it wasn't busy at all. The space inside Hopper Hut is not big and there were two or three other tables of people eating.
We sat down and told the waiter than none of us had ever had Sri Lankan food before. Very friendly, and patient in explaining some of the dishes to us, he was able to immediately give us suggestions on what to try. Egg Hoppers, Mutton Lampries, Kothu Rotti with chicken, and Masala Dosai. Hoppers are a Sri Lankan specialty and they were also the namesake of the restaurant itself. So what is a hopper? It is difficult to describe, but I'll try: a bowl-shaped thin-pancake made with rice flour. I think it's cooked by frying. Confused? Ok go look at a picture. The Egg Hopper is a hopper that is cooked with an egg fried in the middle, and it is quite a tasty delight. The Masala Dosai had what looked like a very long rolled-up crepe along with sauces to dip, and the Kathu Rotti with chicken was a flavourful and spicy dry curry dish. It was the Mutton Lampries that stole my heart though. This lamb and rice dish with a boiled egg wrapped in banana leaves was delicious, meaty, and spicy. My mouth is watering right now thinking about it while writing this review.
I now have a mission - to find good Sri Lankan restaurants in New York City. Unrelated note: it seems from the food we had that Sri Lankans love eggs. I think there was at least one egg in almost every dish we had. I think that's pretty great. I love eggs, too.
Some links:
The Toronto Talk thread I started.
http://www.yelp.ca/topic/toronto-visiting-toronto-from-nyc-next-week-what-do-you-recommend
Kat F's List Of Things For New Yorkers To Do In Toronto.
http://www.yelp.com/list/list-of-things-for-new-yorkers-to-do-in-toronto-toronto read more