Dutch Hospital and Ministry of Crab!

Now us Sri Lankans have the perfect excuse to go out and have a good time and when asked by irritated boss/spouse/colleague say you had to go to hospital with a straight face. And that’s thanks to the opening of the new Dutch Hospital complex in Fort recently. I must confess they have done a remarkable job of renovating the place and it really looks lovely. You do need to ignore the few dogs who roam inside along with the rats and the stares of the military guarding the place. I happened to visit the place with my chums AJ and CT on the opening night of “Ministry of Crab”. We had made reservations without realizing that it was their first day. Since MOC has still not got its liquor license we had to have our drinks at WIP which is a lovely cozy place opened by the Hilton. I was really impressed with the place and the ambience. In fact if we had not made our reservations at MOC we would have had dinner here. After downing a couple of drinks we strolled over to the MOC. Well the ambience was nice. The cooking area looked really nice as it was an open kitchen. I had gone through the menu on the internet and was looking forward to sample some of their Japanese specialties too. For those who don’t know this place is run by the same gentlemen who manages neonbashi. At least three items we asked for from the menu was not there and our dining experience was a bit diluted because the vegetable dish we ordered only came once we had finished our meal. And how was the food you might ask? Expensive is the first comment which comes to mind. The taste was ok. Definitely not out of this world. And if there was one thought we left MOC with was EXPENSIVE! Our bill for three people for one big crab weighing 1.5 kilos two portions of prawns and some rice and vegetables was 12k! No drinks. No dessert! Well as my friend CT commented we would have had a far better experience at “The Lagoon”. I heard the owner of the locations had a 400% mark up on his food sadly the experience he provides does not justify it. Maybe this average service could have been because it was their first day. So I shall go there once more before giving them up for good and running back into the warm embrace of my ever so lovely lagoon.

I also heard that Citrus Reef is starting a new fish restaurant aimed at Colombo Diners who can get their within an hour thanks to the new Southern Highway. Can’t wait for that to come true because I hear the prices are going to be really attractive.