Dinner for Two: Sigiri

Authentic Sri Lankan food is spicy and good

[This restaurant review is part of a series of reviews. A broad description of the series format and other reviews in the series can be found here]

[Note: since the last one of these in July, the subscriber count increased by roughly 30%. If you're newish here and joined because of AI stuff, welcome! You also get very pretentious and opinionated reviews of specific NYC restaurants. Enjoy 😁]

Menu

• Chicken Lamprais

• Kottu Roti w/ chicken and cheese

• Prawn Curry

• Hoppers (3 plain, one with egg)

• Faloodah

Cost: ~105

Mia’s Review

Coming back to NY after the Thanksgiving holiday, we were caught in rain that I had hoped would’ve been the first snow of the season. Hungry and tired after lots of family time and a couple of hours of commuting back to the city, our first thought was: “We should try Sigiri”—it had just the spice and warmth we’d been craving after days reheating cold turkey. After a cold rain,¹ holiday fatigue, and numerous recs from friends, we decided it was finally time to try it.

We headed to the East Village to an area that used to be (maybe still is?) called Little India² (though ofc sigiri is Sri Lankan) and almost missed the sign for Sigiri. After arriving at the very early dinner time of 5 p.m., we were glad to be out of the rain and welcomed the sight of a fairly empty restaurant. We were seated immediately.

A 10min scan of the menu and many pings to our Sri Lankan friends later,³ we finally aligned on what to order. Sadly, there were only two of us, so despite wanting to try the full menu, we had room for only three or four dishes this visit. We ended up choosing the chicken lamprais, kottu roti with chicken and cheese, and the prawn curry. The chicken lamprais was delicious—full of spice, sweetened by caramelized onions, and deepened by the tangy flavor of the goraka. You could tell the rice had been soaked in the chicken juices and that the banana leaf cover had done a great job at keeping all those in. The kottu roti was a bit of a miss—but that may have been my fault for ordering the one with chicken and cheese. The cheese reminded me of the type you’d find in a can (Cheese Whiz?) and covered the whole dish. This was the only dish we did not wipe clean.⁴

For the last dish, we ordered appa—hoppers—to go with the prawn curry. This combination was excellent: the hoppers were crispy, but soft enough to soak up plenty of curry. The curry had a slightly sweet after taste – a rich curry with all the right notes: cardamom, cumin, fennel but with something sweet that tasted almost like little crystals of caramel. I’m fully expecting this dish to be a favorite go-to this winter season. Really just no notes.

Finally, we arrived at dessert. I was stuffed from all the food, but we were here to try ~everything~ and couldn’t pass up ordering dessert. Amol’s allergic to nuts and hates chocolate, so that left only a few options. “Have you ever tried faloodah?” he asked me. “Nope,” I said. “Okay we’re getting that”. It was the right choice—delicate rose flavors mixed with the creaminess of vanilla ice cream. Soaked basil seeds added delightful texture and nuttiness to the fairly sweet drink. Afterwards, I was fully convinced that rose milk should make a more regular appearance in our life (something we could serve to guests when they come for dinner?). Amol was less enthusiastic – something about the “cloying” taste of rose.⁵

Overall, it was a beautiful meal. Outside the rain was pouring, but inside we were warm, cozy, and brought back to life by a great meal. If only I had gone with the black curry instead of the kottu roti, I think it would’ve been perfect.

3 out of 5 (but probably a 3.5 if we had ordered differently)

Amol’s Review

In the suburbs where I grew up, a night out was a trip to TGIF or California Pizza Kitchen.⁶ The same wings drenched in Frank’s Buffalo Sauce, the same thousand-calorie salads, the same frozen patty burgers. I loved those joints. They were opportunities to gather the family around the table and do something together, but also I just legitimately enjoyed the food. Still, even back then, I had the dim awareness that there was the processed mass produced junk that we would eat on a casual Friday, and food, and an inseparable line between them. Places like Thai Kitchen in Bridgewater⁷ or Punjabi Rasoi in Somerset stood out for their lack of pretentiousness and their willingness to serve authentic meals from the home country. When I was young I couldn’t tell you why I thought those restaurants were special, but I knew they were. I still remember when I first moved to NYC. Suddenly every meal was something different. One day it’s the best chorizo I’ve ever had. The next I’m having injera with fitfit at an Ethiopian restaurant. The next it’s dimsum cart brunch at a massive round table, complete with the lazy susan. Hot pot, kbbq, regular bbq, ramen, steakhouse, omakase, classic deli, cart food, prix fixe. It was all new and exciting and just, like, way better than the TGIF Jack Daniel’s Sesame Crusted Chicken™.

It’s funny how pretentious I am about food these days.⁸ A lot of that initial wonder is gone. After ten years of living in this city, I feel like I can’t really be surprised anymore. The restaurants all feel like they are pandering to the same yuppie crowd. Outside of the ethnic enclaves, every restaurant is just another liquor license with some vaguely ethnic window dressing to get people through the door. Is this how people start thinking that foam is innovation? I’m still money conscious enough to shy away from the Michelin Guide, $500 per person for a bit of theater is too steep for me.

I recognize that criticizing the NYC food scene for not being authentic enough is an insane take. The beauty of NYC is that the average restaurant doesn’t have to water down their food for some mass populace. There’s density, which in turn supports diversity, which in turn supports authenticity. And yet. It’s still rare to find a Punjabi Deli or an Ugly Baby (RIP) or an Aburi Ittetsu (RIP), places that are so willing to do something authentic and real that it’s a culture shock just to go eat there.

Sigiri is a culture shock of the best kind.

Part of the reason Sigiri is so good is because it serves an entirely different kind of cuisine, one that I hadn’t run into in all my time in NYC. I asked a few different Sri Lankan friends and they all said that Sigiri was one of only three authentic Sri Lankan restaurants in NYC, and the only one that they would go to whenever they felt homesick. Every single one of them spoke of a sort of Sri Lankan casualness to the restaurant. “You should expect long wait times for your food”, “it’s not going to be fancy”, “the waiter may forget about you for a while”. But also, every one of them said that the food was just the best in town.

I haven’t been to other Sri Lankan restaurants, but I see what they mean. Sigiri is the definition of no frills. It’s cash only. No bar. The website has been ‘under maintenance’ for at least the last 4 months. The restaurant is really just a narrow set of ten tables and a kitchen in the back. And basically every single thing they served was delicious.

Favorite dish was the prawn curry. I am pretty sure they cooked the curry with the full shrimp head, which gave the dish an extremely deep and rich flavor. I don’t generally like shrimp all that much, but I was chomping down on the whole thing, shell and all. The lamprais was a close second. I recommend ordering with a side of yogurt, it goes well with the black peppercorn that had seeped through the entire dish and helps with tolerating the spice level. I think the best part about Sigiri is that they will not hold back. This is not a place for yuppies. Our meal was spicy, and we left with our sinuses fully cleared.

Funny enough, before we ordered we sent out a few messages to our Sri Lankan friends about what to get. None of them responded in time so we ended up just picking a few things off the menu. When their responses came back, they were all different; no two people recommended the same thing. And if their experiences were anything like ours, that means that a pretty broad swath of the menu is pretty good. So I expect that we’ll be back. Both to try out the other parts of the menu, and to appreciate a truly authentic experience from an otherwise unfamiliar cuisine.

4 out of 5.

What does each rating mean?

If we are rating a restaurant, that already means the place has merit. Something about it piqued our interest, or we got a recommendation from someone we generally trust. That said, we are exceptionally opinionated eaters, so we recommend modulating all of our ratings against your own tastes and preferences.

1 — this was a disappointing meal with very few redeeming qualities. We would not come back and would strongly recommend against it. We expect very few restaurants to fall into this category.

2 — a good meal, but not worth the price; there’s better in the city for cheaper. We likely won’t come back here.

3 — good price for the value. We expect most of the restaurants we review to fall in this category, including most of our ‘go-to’ casual spots.

4 — an excellent restaurant. Either a fantastic meal at a high price, or extremely good dollar value. We likely will be back here, and will go out of our way to be back multiple times, often with friends.

5 — one of the best restaurants we’ve been to, or meals that we’ve had. This is a restaurant that is best-in-class in its category or at its price point. We expect very few restaurants to fall into this category.

Restaurants change. The half life of a review like this one is about 6 months. That is, every 6 months, you should trust this review 50% less than you did the previous 6 months.

Pictures

Clockwise from the top left: Prawn Curry, Kottu Roti, Hoppers, Chicken Lamprais. Note that we forgot to actually take pictures, so these were all stolen from the photos in the google reviews 😁

1. Amol: i dont think you emphasized the rain enough

2. Amol: huh I hadn’t heard this before. I knew of curry hill (near murray hill) and jackson heights and journal sq of course. But didn’t know there was a little outpost here in east village

3. Amol: though they did not actually respond 🙄

4. Amol: Honestly my biggest issue with it was that it was very uncanny valley. Like, the thing tasted like mac and cheese. But it was also very obviously NOT mac and cheese?! So my brain was like what IS this alien thing that we are eating its all WRONG. I think I liked it overall but couldn’t get around that sensation

5. Amol: That’s not a ding on this particular faloodah, which was actually very good. I just don’t love rose as a flavor in general, which is a shame cause its in a lot of south asian desserts

6. Mia: the butter cake is iconic

7. Mia: so good

8. Mia: Hehe you were so shocked when Adam called you a “foodie”