DINING
BREAKFAST
Breakfast at Apa Villas is a leisurely affair served from 7.30 AM to 10.30 AM as you sit before the splendid gardens with bird calls and rustling leaves.
You start off with pure fruit juice and a plate of cut tropical fruit whatever the season offers.
The main course is a Western multiple fare of eggs and sausages or bacon or mushrooms leading up to a Marsala omelette with onions, tomatoes and chili.
TASTES OF APA VILLA
Tired of eggs and cereals? We offer a Sri Lankan breakfast unlike any you will find. These are the Pan-Hoppers made with rice flour, coconut juice and milk and a touch of sugar, cooked crisp on the rim in a small pan. Some like it plain or with an egg added in the centre of the pancake. For breakfast, hoppers are eaten with a light coconut milk curry and a spicy sambol relish.
Never leave breakfast without savouring the favourite buffalo milk curd and sweet palm sugar treacle. Buffalo milk curd is a regional specialty delivered daily from up the coast. Need we mention that you will enjoy Ceylon tea or island-grown coffee with breakfast?
ALL DAY LIGHT MEALS, SANDWICHES AND SNACKS
As the day stretches lazily before you, we offer an All-Day Menu of a range of light meals, salads, sandwiches, savoury snacks, Hoppers and sweet treats fitting for the hungry and not so famished. You could say that we know our international travellers well and we provide a tempting page of Asian, Western and in-between dishes all cooked fresh with the best ingredients in our kitchen.
Similarly, our Kids' Menu of all-time favourite spaghetti, burgers, fried rice, chicken cuts, fish and chips made from fresh ingredients will please parents and children alike.
Look out for our homemade Popsicles from pure fruit juice. Nothing beats the mouth-tingling flavor of ripened pineapple, creamy nectar of mango or the natural taste of watermelon and tangy passion fruit. Enjoyed right by the poolside or on the deck.
All-Day Menu is available throughout the day ending at 5.30 PM.
DINNER SPECIALS
When the twilight is gone, we present our choice of two- or three-course set Dinner Specials, Seafood Celebration, Singapore Chili Crab Night and signature Rijstafel (Rice Table) or Sri Lankan dinner changing day to day. All very exciting for holidaymakers to sit back and enjoy our newly-introduced Singapore Straits Chinese cuisine and Western-style Dinners with the catch of the day and fresh meat supplies to make evening meals special indeed.
We request guests to order early in the afternoon for Dinner Specials or at least 24-hours to source the live crab and seafood.
A limited evening menu to order à la carte will be given for late orders.
We prepare vegetarian dishes effortlessly and respect the needs of vegans replacing dairy with local produce like rice flour and coconut milk or cream. Our Straits Chinese desserts use rice flour or bean flour, palm sugar and coconut that are ideal for those intolerant of wheat, egg or dairy.
We take pride that we grow our own local red rice, fruit, vegetables and herbs in a safe organic way without the use of chemical pesticide and fertilizer.
CELEBRATIONS
Our spacious lawn and beachfront garden have provided some photogenic background for many wedding parties, birthday dinners and group outings. Our kitchen staff is experienced to cater party food.
LUNCH & DINNER
The Singapore Connection – by Cynthia Wee-Hoefer
Some words here to introduce the dinner menus at Apa Villas with a flavor of the heritage cuisine of the Peranakan or Straits-Chinese of my home country Singapore.
As far as we know, we are the first and only hotel in Sri Lanka that offers a selection from our indigenous Singapore cuisine.
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The famous Peranakan or Nonya food is a unique blend of ingredients and cooking methods borrowed from the Indonesian archipelago, the Malayan peninsula and Thailand with the inherent palate handed down by our ancestors from China.
The cooking has evolved over generations by the migrant women folk who take fresh local herbs like chili, galangal, lemon grass, ginger, turmeric, candlenuts and shrimp paste and grind them into an aromatic wet pastes.
Depending on the desired taste, tangy tamarind juice or the rich milk from grated coconut makes the flavourful gravy.
Meat usually pork and chicken or seafood form the highlight of the dish but there is more. The cook adds a flourish of fragrant kaffir lime, torch ginger or laksa leaves to give that complexity of flavours that is the hallmark of Peranakan cuisine.
Cooking methods include steaming spicy seafood in parcels made from banana leaves or grilling chicken wrapped in the sweet scented pandanus leaves. There is Otak Blangah made with fillet of fish in a coconut-based curry that is typically Peranakan. Steamed Otak is fish cooked in a savoury custard of ground herbs mixed with coconut cream.
The Roasted Belly of Pork served in our Dinner Special is a hallmark of Chinese cooking found in the Chinatowns of the world capitals. The crunch of pork crackling and melting meat matched with chili vinegar sauce is available in Apa Villas.
We have in our special menu the famous Singapore Chili Crab of Sri Lankan crabs cooked in a sweet, spicy sauce of tomato, chili and lemongrass. It is a must-have for visitors to our island Singapore, so why not here in Apa Villas? However, large-sized live crabs are seasonal and must be ordered 24-hours in advance to source them from the North Western coast of Sri Lanka.
End the dinner with Nonya desserts - Kueh Dadar rolled pancakes filled with grated coconut cooked in palm sugar and topped with coconut cream or the popular Sago Pudding. Naga Sari with a fairytale meaning of Dragon Fairy is a blanc-mange made of coconut cream and banana slices steamed in banana leaf.
Just as Ceylon was under British rule for 150 years, Singapore and Malaya were part of the Crown Colony that inherited a taste of some of the Western palate. We pay homage to this legacy with favourites like fish and chips, burgers, roasts and puddings in our All Day and Dinner Specials menus.
We are proud of our Apa Villa Rijstafel dinner that has become a signature offer for guests. The popular term used in Dutch East India refers to a table laden with small plates of vegetables, meats, curries, relishes, salads and house specialties served at once. You will enjoy jackfruit, passion leaf salad, belim (a kind of starfruit) and other exotic ingredients grown in our Illuketia gardens.
Our Dinner Specials are created for guests as we would in our home. If you have special dietary preferences, please inform our management in advance. Most of all, we sincerely hope that you will enjoy your meals with an appetite for a culinary discovery. Bon Appetit.