At the risk of offending any patriotic Sri Lankan that might read this, I need at this point to say a few words on Sri Lankan cuisine. While we did have some nice meals in Sri Lanka, it was largely only when paying sufficient to feed a small village for a week and they were mostly the cuisine of somewhere other than Sri Lanka - Indian, Thai or Italian for example. A number of tourist places offered courses in Sri Lankan cooking but I can sum up the apparent principles of local cooking in a few words.
Select your ingredients and shred as finely as possible. Then add a considerable amount of salt (ditto sugar if preparing a sweet dish). Next apply sufficient chili to kill any other flavours present. Then allow to stand for long enough for the food to become tepid and finally serve over a quantity of carbohydrate (rice, noodles, roti etc) as big as a newborn baby (thus disregarding that essential foodie maxim to "never eat anything bigger than your head").
Anyone who knows me would confirm that fussy is not a word that applies when it comes to food, and I am familiar with street food in hot, developing countries. However, I was very nervous about Sri Lankan street food. In other places, Indonesia for example, it is usually reassuring that street food comes to you straight from a red hot work, a brazier or some other current heat source, thus mitigating some of the more alarming aspects of local food handling. Sri Lankans for some reason prefer to let their food stand in a glass case or bain marie for long periods of time so that it comes to you unnervingly tepid, if not cold.
On the positive side, the Buddhist influence meant that there were many vegetarian options available and in dubious circumstances I always feel a little more secure with vegetables than flesh. Sri Lanka appears to have little red meat, fish and chicken being the more usual options, but in my mind the options more likely to result in ill effects. We did have chicken a couple of times but I applied Edward's advice vis a vis Bentotte oysters to all the fruits of the sea.
We didn't get sick at all although on a couple of occasions I came close, being too queasy to eat.
There is also some debate as to whether Sri Lankan tap water is safe to drink. The government is confident it is, as are many of the locals but others suggest it is not -perhaps those hoping to sell bottled water. As Sri Lanka, like so much of the world is drowning in a sea of plastic (perhaps literally as the ocean and waterways are afloat with plastic) we tried to avoid bottled water, drinking boiled where possible. I cleaned my teeth with tap water and occasionally refilled my water bottle from apparently clean taps and didn't suffer any negative consequences.
Galle Fort is well set up with tourist eating places and we had some good food there but outside the Fort is a different story. However, on our last evening in Galle, we turned right out of the Galle Star Hotel whereas previously we had always turned left, to head in towards the town centre. We were rewarded by discovering a little Japanese restaurant called Tokyo Ice, just a few doors down.
It was run by a vivacious Japanese lady who had been a fortune teller in Tokyo, and her equally vivacious Sri Lankan landlady. I asked our Japanese hostess what led her to opening a restaurant in suburban Galle. She said she believed she had lived in Galle in the nineteenth century and that it was therefore her destiny to return. I in turn explained my mission to follow Edward's nineteenth century visit and we agreed that it was thus our mutual destiny to meet in her restaurant. Being Japanese, her food standards were impeccable and we therefore had a delightful meal of Japanese curry.
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