Cheese & Chocolate Rottis at Hansika Roti Shop Hikkaduwa Sri Lanka

When I went recently with a group of IT BPO people to Galle for a career fair, I found out that not everyone knows about chicken/cheese and chocolate rotis. They're just like egg rotis but, instead of egg, they're filled with chocolate or cheese and chicken. These tasty beasts are endemic to Hikkaduwa - the original rotti shop is in Narigama Beach.

Recently, as our normal roti shop (opposite the original) had run out of chicken, we drove on a little and saw a really nice place with a signboard advertising cheese / chicken / chocolate rotis "with recipes from the UK!" This was the Hansika Roti Shop.

Most roti shops are not places you can take anyone. This shop however is more like a restaurant with nice wooden benches attached to tables. Most rotti shops have menus on the wall. Here, when we sat down, they gave us a printed, laminated menu with multiple pages! (It even has a burger section - I will write about that later when I revisit...)

So we ordered cheese and chicken rotis (LKR 80) and chocolate rotis (LKR 140). And they came, well presented and plated, with cutlery, even. Both were really good with a lot of cheese inside the cheese and chicken roti and decent amounts of chocolate inside the chocolate one.

Satisfied, I decided to solve this "recipes from the UK" business. I walked around and saw a newspaper clipping hanging on the wall about a Lahiru "Larry" Jayasekara, who came from Hikkaduwa and worked under Gordon Ramsey and was now, at 23, running his own place in UK.

When I asked the lady at the cash register about it, she beamed with maternal pride and told me he was her son and gave me a list of his accomplishments. As my brother is also a chef, we had a long chat about the perils and pleasures of chef-relatedness.

So, if you go to the Hikkaduwa Beach Festival, drop by Hansika for a chicken and cheese roti. And, while you're there, ask Mrs Jayasekara (behind the counter) about her son. It's a nice finish to an excellent menu.