Suvvai

If the queue at Derrel’s is too long to contemplate, give takeaway from their bain-marie a miss and follow your nose a few doors down the road to Suvvai. Ignore the tobacconist shop ambience of the over-lit space: it busts out very credible Sri Lankan food. Plus the prices are so low it gives Derrel’s a run for its money on affordable eating...

We pulled up on an awkwardly low table lounge setting in the window to scarf a generously proportioned box of chicken kothu roti ($15). If you haven’t eaten much Lankan cuisine, this is a chopped up mix of flatbread (roti) stir fried with chicken, vegetables, egg, spices and herbs. It’s an affordable way to fill you up fast. The lamb biriyani ($14) presented a mound of moist, steaming turmeric hued rice dotted with lumps of lamb. Unlike the menu photo it was topped not with lamb curry but a fried chicken drumstick and egg combination: both were good so it was hard to complain. Sri Lanka’s famous export MD mango chutney is dabbed in one corner of the leaf-lined box, and a tiny tub of spiced raita helps you cope with the robust heat level. 

We added a freshly cooked roti ($3) apiece that arrived layered, stretchy and piping hot but totally surplus to need. Dinner for two with a shared bottle of water ($1.50) came in at $36.50: unheard of in inner city locales like Camperdown. 

Suvvai Sri Lankan is located at 105 Parramatta Road, Camperdown.