Apey Kade

"Tarzana Sri Lankan $ Chef Niza Hashim and her husband, Lalith Rodrigo, are natives of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s port-city capital. The name of their Tarzana restaurant translates from the Sinhalese language as “our store.” Among several restaurants in the San Fernando Valley that serve Sri Lankan food — on the whole a remarkable and complex cuisine that’s under-represented in Los Angeles — their menu is the most comprehensive and the most consistently delicious. For dine-in or takeout, call ahead an hour or two to request lamprais, pronounced lump-rice, a feast of chicken or beef curry with vegetables (or ask for it entirely vegetarian) and other sides warmed in a banana leaf. The steam when you unwrap this parcel carries the scents of sweet spice, coconut palms and floral rice. Idiyappam, or string hoppers, are made of thin rice-flour noodles steamed into pearly nests and served with kiri hodi, a golden spiced coconut-milk gravy; a salad of finely chopped greens; sambol; and chutney. You have a choice of curry: I suggest the fish. Its secret ingredient is a dried fruit that goes by many names: goraka, kudampuli, Malabar tamarind. It imparts a sour, smoky tanginess to seafood for which the palate has no other reference."