Indian Ocean Pavilion — Restaurant in Colombo

Great food & great atmosphere...

I went there with couple of my friends for weekday dinner. We reached there at 7.00 pm and there weren't many people at that time and place was really calm (But later it was almost full). I liked the very spacious atmosphere which was warm and welcoming. The staff greeted us and showed to our table. The table was bit wobbly which is the only complaint I had for the night. We got a round table but there were many different types of seating arrangements which you don't see in other similar buffet restaurants.

Buffet was arranged in different areas of the huge restaurant. Each cuisine and course of the buffet was arranged in a dedicated street like fashion with dedicated names for each. You have to walk a bit to get things, but I really liked the arrangement.

Foodwise, I like almost all they had to offer. Starters were bit limited in number but what they had to offer were unique from each other. It's not the same ingredients present differently. There were two soups. One was seafood and other was vegetarian. Tried the seafood one and it was delicious. There was decent amount of dinner roll types available. On the mains they had Japanese, Thai & Chinese, Indian, Western and Sri Lankan cuisine. For Japanese they had few types of Sushi and pickles only, but they were good. For seafood they had cuttlefish, crabs, lobsters, mussels. I tried a half of small lobster which was fine. Thai section had a full meal with rice and many curries. There were couple of types of dumplings and noodle soup too. The north Indian section was a blast. There was Pulao, Dum Biriyani & Naan roti with many types of heavy creamy curries. Loved them all. There was a dedicated station for Puri too. The Western section had pizza, ratatouille, lasagna and some baked fish, chicken and vegetables. Tried all of them and they were good. Sri Lankan section had steamed rice, vegetable rice with many curries. Didn't try them because we were too full. They had a hopper station too and we didn't miss that one. It would have been nice if they could use whole eggs on hoppers instead of whisked eggs. The dessert section was bit small but had everything I wanted. Cut fruit was my go-to in every buffet. Apart from that they had delicious gulab jamun. Not too sweet and it tasted milky too. Also have to mention rice kheer which was very delicious. Other item which took my attention was ice cream and sorbet. Tried the two sorbet flavors they had, and they were good. On ice creams they had 5 flavors, but I was not into ice cream that night. They also had these cackles and other sweets. Also had a waffle station with many toppings. We were too full after trying out so many things :D

Overall, we had a great experience. Food was tasty and had a unique selection when compared with other similar places. The staff was very friendly and helpful. Not too intrusive but attended us timely. Apart from the wobbly table I have...

I was on holiday in Sri Lanka last week and some of my family and friends decided to catch up for lunch at ITC Ratnadipa at tgr Indian Ocean Pavillion Restaurant. The price for lunch buffet was 6720 rupees per person including all service charges. I initially made a reservation for 6 people and I was told that I don't need to pay any deposit. I later called to change my booking to 13 people because more friends would be joining for lunch. This time, I was told that I'd have to pay for 6 people in full because it was a bigger group, which was fine by me. The staff said they'd send an email with a link to pay for 6 people for the lunch buffet. But, when I got the email, it was the price for only 2 people. So I called up again and the staff apologised and said it was an error and they would resend the email. A couple of hours later, I got another email asking for payment for 6 people but they had quoted the dinner buffet price which is more expensive than the lunch buffet price. So I had to call again and the staff apologised and said it was a mistake and sent another email with the correct price for 6 people for the lunch buffet. I was told that you can only pay using the link which means you need to have internet banking for this to work. My aunty living in Sri Lanka wanted to pay for lunch but she doesn't have internet banking so I paid using my Australian card and the payment went through. It took a whole day just to sort this out and my family and I were extremely disappointed by the service.

On the day of the lunch buffet, we explored the hotel and it was beautiful and the views were amazing. When we went to eat, we were escorted to our table. I was really disappointed because I had made a reservation for 13 people, so the table should've been prepared for 13 people. But when we got there, it was only set up for 10 people so we had to awkwardly stand there while staff members moved chairs to the table and set up cutlery for 3 more people.

Then we left our bags on the chairs and went to eat. The food was delicious and there was lots to choose from. There was sri lankan, north indian, south indian and western food. Everything was delicious. There were lots of dessert options too. Overall, the process to make the reservation really put me off coming to ITC but I guess the food partly made up for it. Anyone wanting to book for large groups of more than 6 people, make sure you check your emails properly so you don't pay the...

Went to try the ITC dinner buffet as it was recommended to me by a few of my colleagues who visited a while back.

Unfortunately our visit to the indian Ocean pavilion was a distasteful one (pun intended).

It was a very packed and busy evening with the first seating getting over and the second seaters were arriving as well.

The table design inside the restaurant is questionable, the architure itself is fine and the design also but the table arrangement per say is confusing. We received a table covered by a large partition next to the desert corner. That area felt packed and we werent able to capture the essence of the restaurant. We requested multiple time that we wanted to change tables despite having alot of empyting seats towards the night, they didnt allow us. Finding the appetiser section was a challenge itself as its covered by the tables and difficult to spot at first sight.

There was quite a large variety of food mostly consisting of indian cuisine (rightfully so as its an indian restaurant) but we expected more international, srilankan and other cuisine items as well. Wasnt a big fan of the international, other cuisine items but the indian items were alright. One pork curry they had was also a standout. Apart from that, not many memorable items. Too many curry items, it needs to be matched with a few dry food items as well, especially for meet and seafood. We were quite disappointed with lack of seafood items avaliable as well, the sushi that they had was subpar.

Eventhough they are following the indian theme, some of the classic indian comfort food such as naan, roti (masala, garlic) was missing, no tandoori options or even biryani, instead they had a long rice mandhi type rice which is fine but needed a biryani instead of 2 of those rice items. I also dont remember a butter chicken or masala type dishes... My apologies if the chefs are following a south / north indian cuisine and I'm referencing the other. But regardless I think the popular dishes should be there, not all but few.

Dessert selection was good but it was quite bizzare to not see watermelon, pineapple, papaya fruits avaliable when its usually a standard. Maybe we went on an off day or the standards have slipped off a bit. But compared to the competitors around colombo, its...