Beach Wadiya — Restaurant in Colombo

I've been wanting to visit this particular restaurant for many, many years and finally it happened. Crossing the railroad tracks this lovely old man was keeping an eye out for trains. The place was rather deserted but mind you that it was the week before Sinhala and Tamil new year. We sat down close to the water line and it would have been nice if they'd cleanded the beach outside their fencing part up. Watching plastic of all sorts is not a pretty sight while having dinner. It was written on every page of the menu that all orders needed 45 minutes so I can't complain over the waiting time if there had been a crowd of people but it wasn't. We ordered French fries/chips as a nibble while waiting for the more time consuming food to prepare. After 20 minutes we we're served salt drenched and soggy fries, impossible to eat so they went straight back to the kitchen. The full fish served was over cooked and even burned. Leaving it tasteless. There was some sliced tomatoes on the side as garniture.The waiter did a nice job removing the backbone when serving us. Thank you. The cuttlefish had more soggy batter than cuttlefish and it was tasteless. I had to perform an autopsy to make sure it was something more than batter. I've tried Devilled dishes all over Sri Lanka and it always a treat as the flavours vary but it has always been well cooked. The Devilled chicken we were presented will only be remembered because it was completely tasteless, deluted tomato sauce with some slices of leek and dry chicken. At least the beer was cold and the...

I had been to the Beach Wadiya decades ago. Always one of my favorite stops when I am in Colombo. The place has character. For one, you have to cross train tracks (there is a path) to get to the entrance. It is very basic, hardly any decor, but the tables and chairs are on beach sand. The areas are covered. And you have a direct view of the beautiful ocean. I came here with a plan, and that was to eat lobster. They have only a few variations and I chose the grilled preparation (which they said was prepared over a flame) with melted butter. I chose a 650g lobster (price is 2k rupees per 100g). When the dish arrived at my table, I was immediately disappointed.

Both the top (meat) and the bottom (shell) part had no signs of being subjected to a flame (no charring anywhere). It came out with a dry look. I poured butter on it, let it soak for a while and then consumed it. It kept bothering me, so I addressed it with the server and told him that it was clearly the boiled preparation. He admitted that it was boiled but put on the fire after that. I told him that was not accurate. For dessert I had the fruit salad...

We had such high hopes for this restaurant given that it is rated as one of the top 10 restaurants in Colombo. We reserved online and that was about as efficient as it got. We asked the waiter if all the fish was available and he was more obsessed with telling us everything is ordered separately, but said everything was available. So we proceed to order, 2 Gin and Tonics, our Gin of choice was not available. Prawn cocktail and 1. Crab cocktail "Crab cocktail has all gone", ok thinking it was a one off. We went onto order our main courses Lobster and Jumbo Prawns, "No Lobster its all sold out". Ok so you don't have everything, what do you have! Crab, Fish, Prawns. Confused as to why we couldn't order a crab cocktail. We ordered the Jumbo Prawns which were good, Sri Lankan Chicken curry and Vegtable fried rice. The Chicken curry was bland and watery, and the rice had no flavour. And the garlic bread was slices of bread with garlic rubbed in. We left dissappointed and this is clearly a restaurant that is still dining out on its 80's, 90's celebrity visits but the food is not...