Italian cuisine has influenced global cuisine over the past decades. The interesting aspect of this cuisine is its regional diversity with culinary reflections from Florence, Rome, Venice and Fererra. The recipes blossomed in the 4th century, after the fall of the once defiant Roman Empire.
To many of us Italian food revolves around pasta and pizza, but there is so much more.
The Cinnamon Grand Echo Restaurant is situated right on the Galle Road and has a separate entrance. This gives the venue a unique selling point as one does not have to venture into the hotel’s grand lobby. The ambience is elegant, yet simple. Shades of brown, with illuminated pillars resonate with a blue-green haze. As I entered the venue I was surprised to see that every table was occupied, thankfully mine was reserved.
Wednesday night is the highlight of the week as Echo displays her Infinity Buffet. From a distance the visual appeal of the entire buffet was brilliant, with colourful contrasts. The fresh oysters nested in a block of ice that let out a luminous blue light gave the oysters a mystique aura. As the kitchen doors swung open I was able to recognize Executive Sous Chef Rasika Weeraratne. The cold section had a mélange of items including, Brosola roll stuffed with cheese, smoked modha with eggplant, chicken breast, salmon mimosa, mushroom flan and tuna carpaccio. The stand out dish was the octopus and potato salad. It isn’t often one gets to relish an octopus, and the octopus was cooked to the right texture while retaining its rich natural flavour.
Perhaps, we should incorporate octopus into our local cuisine, as we are inclined to seafood anyway. The cute glasses containing cold vegetable soup with bacon was a first for me. Having bacon in a soup is not something we encounter in Colombo, yet, this is what innovative cuisine is all about. The beef arancini was another first for me, and the item resembled a cutlet: the meat was juicy. The hotel had come up with a novel menu choice for the main course. You can have all four items (each dish in a smaller portion) served on one platter. Thus, the steward arrived with a large white plate on which was laid- fusilli with braised beef and mushroom, pan fried fish fillet with caramelized bell pepper, ricotta and spinach ravioli with the signature four cheese sauce and chicken skewer with black olives and BBQ sauce. The fish fillet was excellent, but could have displayed a more golden brown to enhance the overall appeal of the plate. The ricotta and spinach ravioli was a work of culinary genius and made me think of how talented our local cooks are in making food from other regions of the world. After this Italian main course one must indulge in dessert.
The dessert comes as a trio-chocolate truffle cake, avocado semifreddo, and strawberry and basil panna cotta. The three items are beautifully laid out on a rectangular white plate. Their levels of sweetness supplement each other.
Echo is a very busy venue and can seat almost 60 guests. It is a venue that stands out literally from the others at the Cinnamon Grand.
Pix: Vipula Amarasinghe