We Came Back to SRI LANKA for THIS! 🇱🇰

I've been waiting for this moment for two entire years. This is the beginning of a massive Sri Lankan adventure. Two years ago, we made a promise that we were going to come back to this country, Sri Lanka, the place that we absolutely fell in love with on our first visit. And now we're back and there's no better place to start this trip off than right here in Negombo. And we're at a very important place right now. We are currently at St. Sebastian's Church, where on the 21st of April in 2019, a very tragic event took place here. And here are all of the names of the people who tragically lost their life during the Easter bombing that took place at this very church. Now believe it or not, we were in Negombo during our first trip. We actually walked past this church as well. And at that time, we really were not familiar with the history of this place. But now we are. And it is a very beautiful start to the beginning of a new adventure here in Sri Lanka. My God, you guys, we are so, so excited to be back in Sri Lanka. Of course, we made that one promise two years ago, but we didn't actually think that it was going to take us two whole years to come back to Sri Lanka. We were kind of planning on maybe one year or so. But I feel like we have been going east for a very long time. So yeah, back to Sri Lanka. It is back in South Asia. Luke is currently fighting with these candles from the look of it. It's crazy, there's flames. Massive flames. It's very windy. So it's very windy. It's kind of difficult to keep the candles lit. But yes, we are going to pray for a positive and safe trip here in Sri Lanka, which I'm sure we are going to get regardless. Because Sri Lanka is a very safe and very easygoing country. And we're just so, so stoked to be back here. And I cannot wait to try Sri Lankan food once again. I kind of feel like because of how long it has been, we are not really familiar with the taste anymore. You know, after a while, you kind of forget what things taste like. So yeah, we're going to try and find maybe an authentic Sri Lankan restaurant here as well after Luke lit his candles. Now, another reason I think why this church is such an important starting point for this Sri Lanka series is Sri Lanka is a majoritatively Buddhist and Hindu population. But I think that the struggle and hardship that this community here in Nagumbo went through during the time of this attack, but how rapidly they bounced back symbolizes just how strong Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan people truly are. Sri Lanka in general has been going through some tough times. But I've heard recently you guys got yourself a new president and things seem to be taking a turn in a better direction. And Sri Lankan people, no matter what, are incredibly resilient and powerful and will always bounce back. So on that note, this is the beginning of a massive Sri Lankan adventure. And I am so excited. Super super excited. And in case you guys are wondering what we are up to on this Sri Lanka trip, the plan is pretty much to try and hit up all of the places that we haven't seen the last time. So we have a lot of empty spots on our Google Maps and we're going to try and fill those spots in with little hearts. Let's do this. Next up, let's go grab ourselves some Sri Lankan food. We've missed it very very much so. And let's check out a little bit of Negombo if the rain holds off. It doesn't look too pleasant right now up there in the sky. Let's see what we can see. Hello. Back in a tuk-tuk. Can you believe it? It has been such a long time for us not riding any tuk-tuks. But now we're back in the land of tuk-tuk. Yeah, we've missed this so much. If you had of watched our first series when we arrived in Sri Lanka, we were very cautious about taking tuk-tuks. But now I think we have it figured out from the last time. You just download the PickMe app and it is very very smooth and simple. But yeah, it feels nice to be back in the back of a tuk-tuk on our way to get our first Sri Lankan meal. I'm absolutely starving and I cannot wait to taste some proper Sri Lankan flavours again. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Right, it did not take long for the rain to kick in and come after us. So we made our way here to Ceylon Kitchen, which looks like a very beautiful place. It has a lot of positive reviews as well. And yeah, it's very well put together. It almost looks like you're somewhere fancy, but I think it's not that fancy. We just heard that they have a nice Sri Lankan style buffet and that's exactly what we're craving right about now. So let's give it a shot. Thank you so much. Let's go for the menu, I want to say. For the buffet. It's a buffet. Yes. Sri Lankan curry, the vegetables and egg, chicken, fish, pork, beef. There are different prices. The rice has yellow rice, white rice and vegetables. Okay, nice. Thank you so much. Thank you. Which one do you want? I think I'm going to go for maybe an egg buffet. Egg? Yeah, egg or chicken. Both of them sound good. I'm supposing like if you choose one, like an egg buffet or a chicken buffet, that's like your base and then you add all the rest of the ingredients. So like rice and dal curry and all of the amazing Sri Lankan curries that kind of goes around your meat of choice or your dish of choice. Man, I'm so excited. It's been so long since we've had like a proper Sri Lankan or a South Asian meal, so I cannot wait for this. So Luke is going to go for egg or chicken. I feel like I have to get something else then. Maybe I'm going to get the beef. Yeah. Beef buffet. Why not? Let's try that. So excited for this. You cannot imagine it. The lady said that you can basically choose from this entire buffet here and then she's going to bring the protein directly to the table. So of course you have white rice and yellow rice. Oh my God, that looks to die for. Just that one look made me so excited. Then you have white dal curry with coconut milk. What is this one? That looks like maybe pumpkin. Is this one pumpkin or jackfruit? Jackfruit. Okay, nice. This one is jackfruit. Let's have a look. My best friend, our chef is there. Okay, nice. Thank you. Spicy potatoes. We have green beans. Oh my God, this is never ending. This looks like a spicy cabbage. Oh, what is this? Bitter gourd maybe. I believe that one should be bitter gourd. I want to say eggplant. Not a hundred percent on this one, but it looks like eggplant. This one I also don't know. What is this one? That single achar. Oh. Sri Lankan achar. Oh, nice. I need to try everything. This one? The leaves. Oh, okay. Vegetable salad. Nice. And papadums. Sri Lankan coconut sambal. Oh, that one looks very good. Yeah. Very tasty. These are meat items. Pork, chicken, egg. Okay, okay, nice. All right, I'm going to make myself a plate, I think. I cannot wait to see. Okay. Oh, what do I do with this? So scared to break something. Oh, look at this beautiful yellow rice. Absolutely stunning. Wow, it smells so good. Of course, the dal curry. You cannot miss dal curry. Every single Sri Lankan dish, regardless of breakfast, lunch or dinner, it will always have dal curry with it. Then jackfruit curry. Yes. I miss jackfruit curry so much. I feel like only really Sri Lanka makes a curry out of jackfruit. Of course, in other countries you can eat jackfruit, but usually the ripe one, not the unripe one, and nobody ever makes a curry out of it. Right. Spicy potatoes. Just one or two. Whey. Green beans. I think I will take a little bit of everything. Just try everything, I guess. Spicy cabbage. This one was bitter gourd, no? I think so, it looks like bitter gourd, yeah. Looks like bitter gourd. This one? I think spicy aubergine, maybe? Yeah, it looks like brinjal. Brinjal, yeah. I forgot the name of it. See how long we haven't been here? I forgot the name of it. My God. This one I don't know. She said the Sri Lankan name to me just like two seconds ago, but I already forgot. Green leaves. We can skip the salad, no? Let's get a papadum. One, two. And of course, a nice little chilli. Can you believe how beautiful that looks? Yeah, so I went for basically the same, or very similar at least, as to what Naomi got. So, I didn't go for dal, because dal is definitely Naomi's favourite dish. I went heavier with this stuff here, so the chilli coated potatoes, green beans. This here, which is I think kind of a chilli cabbage of sorts. And brinjal. Brinjal is like legitimately my number one Sri Lankan food. If I had to pick something to live off of, like if I was stuck in Sri Lanka, and I had to eat something for like 30 days straight or whatever just to survive, it would be brinjal. It is delicious. That and seeni sambal, those two are unbelievable. And I went and mixed my rice. So I have a combination of white rice and the yellow rice combined together, just because I couldn't really make an actual informed decision as to which rice I wanted to go for. But rice is the staple of pretty much every Sri Lankan dish, so keep that in mind. If there's no rice, you haven't really eaten in Sri Lanka. And that's what a local will tell you, that's straight to your face. If you don't have rice, you don't have food. So I'm so, so excited to give this a go right now. Go give it a try. I'll give it a shot, yeah. Now I'm going to attempt, and when I say attempt, I'm going to attempt to use my hand. It is clean, so all good. I'm going to attempt to use my hand because that is the right way to eat in Sri Lanka. The forks, knives, spoons, you'll see those being used a lot in Southeast Asia, but here in South Asia, Sri Lanka, India as well, you're going to see the majority of people using their hand, especially in an authentic sort of a setting like that. So I'm going to try and mix my rice together, and then I'm going to just sort of select different pieces of it. So I'll get green beans, a little bit of the cabbage, a little bit of the brinjal as well. Put it together in a nicely sort of, a little almost like, it's like you're kind of mixing concrete together. And then it comes together in one ball like this. I've never really, truly figured out how to properly do this. And then you just pop it in your mouth. Wow. The flavors are unbelievable. Wow. That's actually immediately kicking me with spice, which I've missed. I've missed it so much. My voice is literally breaking from the spice. There's something in there that has a lot of red chili in it. I've missed this a lot because we've spent a lot of time traveling around in different countries in Eastern Asia recently, South Korea, China. We've also spent a lot of time in Thailand because it's one of our favorite places to just sort of hang out in. Food in Thailand is spicy. Food in China, you can find spicy food. The food in Korea is definitely spicy. It's probably the spiciest of those three. But here in Sri Lanka, the spice is on a different category. And I don't mean spicier. I mean it just tastes different. And you'll know what I mean if you ever visit Sri Lanka. These potatoes are quite literally coated in this beautiful red chili. Most Westerners, oh, my God. Most Westerners, if you were to just look at this potato, they wouldn't eat it. I guarantee you. But for us, after spending, we spent three months traveling all over Sri Lanka the last time we were here, and we absolutely fell in love with the food. And it's no different now. I'm telling you, that brinjal, it's so good. Brinjal is basically eggplant. It's an eggplant sort of a curry. It's very sort of a sticky consistency with onions. And the flavor of it is just beautiful. Really sort of a strong umami flavor off of it. I'm going to give some of this chicken here a go as well. Now, Sri Lanka, they like to use the bones in a lot of their meat. So you do have to be careful. I think that's another reason why a lot of people use their hands as well. Because when you use your hands, you can properly feel the food. And you can also, it's the most sort of organic and natural way to have the proper flavor of the food as well. I'm going to go in for a bite of this chicken. Oh my god. That's seriously good. The curry here in Sri Lanka consists of a lot of spices as well. Oh, our drinks. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Sutee. Like I was saying, the chicken here, guys, it consists of a lot of spices. Now, cardamom, cinnamon, things like that. And cinnamon, obviously. Sri Lanka is probably, I think, the number one in the world when it comes to cinnamon and cinnamon production. So you're going to find it pretty heavily featured in a lot of Sri Lankan food. And I can taste the cinnamon kick off of this chicken. The meat is tender. Incredibly juicy. And it goes perfectly with every single thing here on this plate. I'm in heaven right now. Seriously. First day back here. The weather is not good. I'm not going to lie. It's raining pretty heavily. I have a plate full of beautiful food, so I'm happy. I cannot believe my emotions being behind the camera the entire time. Just having to wait for Luke to finish his food. To try all of his food. I was just like, let me try my food. Patience is not something that I'm good at at all. In case you've ever met me, you will know I'm not a patient person. Okay, let's go and try and mix some of this beautiful curry. And also, I got the beef, so I have some beef on top here. By the way, Luke's reaction to the spiciness level of the food, the spice level, made me question my choice of bringing a chili with me. I was like, maybe this is tourist level of spice. But it might not be tourist level of spice. It is so good. I cannot believe it, you guys. I've been waiting for this moment for two entire years. Two years, no Sri Lankan food. It's so difficult to find authentic Sri Lankan food in other countries as well. I feel like you will always find a Pakistani or an Indian or something like that. Very rarely will you find a Sri Lankan. Why is that? It's very odd. Anywho, let's go and give a try to the brinjal, I believe. That's Luke's favorite. It's not my favorite, but it's Luke's favorite. Oh, yes. That is beautiful. My personal favorite will probably forever be the dal. I don't know. I'm just in love with the color of it, how yellow-orange it is, the consistency. Lentil, it's just beautiful. Nice. I always feel like bitter gourd, if it's prepared properly, it kind of tastes a little bit like the bitter sister of a zucchini. Maybe, if that makes sense. And I remember two years ago, some local, I believe it was Nilokshan, I'm not 100% sure, told us that while you are making bitter gourd dishes, you're not allowed to talk. Because if you talk, the bitter gourd will get more bitter, apparently. I don't know how accurate that is, but yeah, the cook here definitely was not talking while making this beautiful bitter gourd. It is bitter, but it's not like blow your face off bitter, so it's nice. It's good. And the beef. Nice and tender, beautiful flavors in the beef. And the beef, of course, is cooked in large curry leaves. And that's also something, I believe, that is very, very commonly used in Sri Lankan cuisine, is the large curry leaf, basically, instead of... I mean, they also use probably curry powders, but you will always find the curry leaves as well in every single dish. Let's go and give the jackfruit curry a try. That's very nice. It's a nice sort of potatoey consistency, but it has the fructose, so it has kind of a little bit of the sweetness, because obviously jackfruit is a fruit, not a potato, not a vegetable. Sorry, kind of missed my mouth there. Beautiful. I'm so happy. I couldn't be happier. This is the perfect first place to come to for Sri Lankan food. Okay, so that buffet came to a grand total of 4,500 rupees, which is roughly around 15 US dollars or 14 euros. So cost-wise, unbelievable, because we could go back as many times as we want, have as much rice as we want, as much brinjal as we want. And trust me, I cashed in on that brinjal. Unbelievable. We really wanted to show you guys more of Nagombo, but it's currently quite literally apocalyptic rain pummeling down right now. But we want to say we are very, very glad to be back here in Sri Lanka. We have so many videos coming your way, and we hope that we can show you a very special and unique side to this paradise island this time around. We have a lot of unique and interesting places that we're going to be hitting up, and we're very, very excited to bring you guys along with us. Exactly. The last time we were a little bit more on the tourist route, I feel like, and this time around, we're going to try and do a little bit of the local round. Now, being in Nagombo, of course, we're very close to the beach right now, so we're actually in the tourist area, but we're going to change that really quickly, I guess. Yeah, we're going to be basically, first off, we're going to have a video coming your way that's going to dive into a very interesting side of Colombo, and then from there on, we're going to keep it a secret for now. But for now, my name is Luke. My name is Naomi. We are the Two Mad Explorers. And this is your reminder to keep exploring. And we'll see you guys in the next Sri Lankan adventure. Bohoma stuti for watching. Bohoma stuti. Bye-bye.