…but, admittedly, quite a lot of it was about the grub!
We quickly slipped into the type of institutionalised (in a good way) mode that wonderful places such as the Anantara Peace Haven encourage in their guests. Through our agents, Healing Holidays – click here for our itinerary, we had pre-arranged to play tennis at 8:00 every morning.
The temperature even at 8:00 was a bit hot for Janie – even I felt it on the more humid days. Add to that the bouncy surface that neutralised Janie’s fiendish slice…the conditions suited me more than Janie.
We’d also pre-booked, for the first day, the 5th, a body scrub treatment (to prepare our skin for sun) and a consultation at the spa. Here’s the list of treatments we had in those first few days:
- 5th – 30 minute body scrub and consultation with Ayurvedic doctor
- 7th – Pinda Sweda (Ayurvedic hot pouches treatment) followed by 45 minute meditation class
- 8th – head and neck massage.
The spa was superb. Janie and I were mostly treated by Oka (me) and Lily (Janie), who were excellent practitioners. Meditation was with Vinod. We arranged some more treatments for the second half of our stay.
We had a pool villa, which we made our home for much of the day, most days. The small pool didn’t offer much length for swimming, but it was great for foot-dangling while reading.
I’ll write some more about the reading and the local wildlife (much of which would stop by at our villa, so we didn’t much need to go look for it) in a separate article or two.
Because you, dear reader, came to this article to learn some more about the grub, didn’t you?
On the first evening, 4 January, we ate in the Verala Asian restaurant. Janie can be seen digging in to the giant lagoon prawn dish…
…and we also ordered some Thai style regular prawns, Goong Pad Med Mamuang – so there! Meals in that restaurant are prefaced with a delicious welcome soup, based around coconut milk with spices and either lentils or rice. Janie has the recipes for future reference!
On the second evening, we dined in the main restaurant, as there was an opportunity to try an array of Sir Lankan style dishes. We were particularly taken with a spicy lamb which the chef was cutting from the bone for the diners, but we also tried some small tasters of other Sri Lankan dishes. I particularly like the traditional yellow rice with Sri Lankan dishes and the local daal was very tasty indeed to my taste.
On the third evening, 6 January, we returned to the main restaurant (for the last time) for the seafood buffet. We’re not really buffet people, but we did fancy trying the array of seafood available. We tried prawns in more than one style and particularly enjoyed the local fish, barramundi, roasted in a Sri Lankan style.
On the fourth evening, 7 January, we tried Il Mare, the Italian restaurant, which was really excellent. I went for a seafood pasta (Linguine ai frutti di mare), while Janie went for local tuna steak with mash (180g Bistecca di tonno).
My pasta dish in particular lent itself to the food porn photo treatment:
Our fifth meal, 8 January, saw us return to the impressive Verala – not for the last time either.
Despite having sworn, when we were in Portland Maine, just three months earlier, that we were through with wrestling large shellfish…
…we decided to attempt it again, as we had happy memories of Hikkaduwa crab from our previous times in Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan crab curry was hard work but was just about worth the wrestle. We did swear “never again”, again, though. Our exhaustion exacerbated by the unfortunate “lock out” from our villa, as the batteries in our door lock failed between locking up for dinner and trying to return after dinner. The problem was easily fixed, but not before we walked all the way to reception to report the problem. Walking off such a dinner is probably not such a bad idea, but a better idea if done willingly and with expectation!
We had a busy day ahead of us the next day, as we had booked a lunch time cookery session at Mama’s Kitchen, which I’ll describe and illustrate in the next episode.
2 thoughts on “It Wasn’t All About Giant Prawns, Seafood & Spices In Tangalle, The First Few Days, 4 to 8 January 2026”