Wandering through Staten Island a couple of days ago in pursuit of birds and famished I remembered an old suggestion from @DaveCook of RANDIWA at 1405 Richmond Ave, Staten Island, NY 10314. this is just off the intersection of Richmond Road and the Staten Island Expressway on the Western side of the Island and if there is no parking out front, parking can be found in the big mall parking lot just south of the resto. It was deserted at 130 pm so I selected 3 dishes to go and Jim and I chowed down on the acquisitions over the next couple nights - obviously not the best time to visit a resto or the best way to enjoy the results. However the good tastes we got justified the visit which produced better eating (though maybe less fun) than a visit to nearby Lawruwana for brunch a year or so ago. I tried to order vadis, but think their deep fryer must not have been fired up. I wound up with a huge container of mutton kottu roti, which had a very nice mutton curry base along with a generous number of chopped vegetables and of course the sliced roti bits.
Ceylon chicken curry, a coconut curry served with a large container of basmati rice topped with servings of dal, a mound of finely chopped crispy and highly spiced collards (seemingly not cooked) and a sizeable serving of a delicious eggplant and onion curry.
For the third dish I ordered their Lamprie (akaLamprais) specialty and selected king fish as the protein at the suggestion of the host. This was great, with spiced ghee rice, more eggplant curry, a fried harboiled egg, curried cashews, and also green plantains, along with some tender kingfish curry and a fritter. All wrapped and cooked together in banana leaves. We really enjoyed this full flavored dish. sorry I forgot to take the pic until a couple servings had been removed!
We also got a container of sauce but it was not cleare what it was to accompany - maybe some were some fried papadum in the package - It was too thick to be rasam. Would be happy to revisit for sure. I thought it might be a cut above Spicy Lanka, except for the kottu rotti, which was a trifle limper than SL’s, but who am I to judgespecially when it was reheated takeout? everyting tasted great.
