Queen Lanka Group

An Astonishing Array of Sri Lankan Specialties, at Queens Lanka | The New Yorker

"Tucked into Jamaica, Queens, Queens Lanka — an extraordinary new restaurant and grocery run by co-owner Rasika Wetthasinghe — feels like a portal to Sri Lanka. I watched Wetthasinghe, who learned to cook as a child and trained in Colombo, work alone in a cramped kitchen to produce an astonishing array of Sri Lankan specialties: on one recent visit a plate of rice and curry included four curries (yellow dal, batons of richly melty beetroot, jackfruit, and pineapple), sticky-sweet deep-fried sprats, and a gotu kola sambol of finely chopped kale, red onion, and tomato. The kottu comes with roti sliced into noodle-like scraps stir-fried with egg, scallion, green chilies, shredded carrot, whole cardamom pods, curry leaves, and morsels of fish, chicken, beef, or mutton, served with a ginger‑garlic‑onion gravy. Unwrapping a lamprais — folded in a lush banana leaf — revealed curried cashews, dark crispy batu moju (fried-eggplant pickle), seeni sambol of tamarind-and-chili-glazed shallots, and a fluffy curried-mackerel-and-potato fritter. The adjoining grocery, though recently sparse because imports from Sri Lanka have become harder to obtain, still stocks treats like Munchee Hawaian Cookies (ideal with fragrant Ceylon tea), large sacks of red rice, passion-fruit jam, chili pastes, and king-coconut water. Seating is minimal (two sidewalk tables and a tiny counter with a struggling A.C. and a fan), dishes run $9–$18, and the ribbon of fiery spice through almost every dish makes the place unmistakably of another place and yet very much present." - Hannah Goldfield