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Lankan Filling Station

Fiery snacks and refined curries that hum with chilli.

Egg hoppers.
1 / 8Egg hoppers.Christopher Pearce
Inside Lankan Filling Station.
2 / 8Inside Lankan Filling Station.Dominic Lorrimer
Hopper set with green pol and kata sambols.
3 / 8Hopper set with green pol and kata sambols.Dominic Lorrimer
Beef pan roll.
4 / 8Beef pan roll.Steven Woodburn
Crab cutlets.
5 / 8Crab cutlets.Steven Woodburn
Cabbage mallung.
6 / 8Cabbage mallung. Supplied
Curry and sambol ingredients.
7 / 8Curry and sambol ingredients.Benito Martin Photography
Fish curry.
8 / 8Fish curry. Steven Woodburn
Good Food hat15/20

Sri Lankan$$

If salt-and-pepper squid has suffered from overexposure, let’s talk hot-butter cuttlefish. Tender flesh with just a little snap. The fragrance of banana chillies and shallots, and addictive spicy butter that leaves your tongue tingling.

Every dish is a celebration of spices at O Tama Carey’s teensy restaurant. Depth and complexity are in abundance, whether in playful snacks, such as betel leaves shipping roasted crab, chilli sambol and lime, or rich curries ordered from a tick-a-box menu.

And while you don’t need to love chilli to eat here, it certainly helps; when the menu says it’s hot, it means it. Relief comes in the form of comforting parippu coconut-milk dhal, or creamy cashew curry driven by a restrained white curry powder.

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Hoppers are a must on weekends, best torn by hand for swiping through every dish. Still sweating? Rose-flavoured faluda and lo-fi wines are on hand.

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Original URL: https://www.smh.com.au/goodfood/nsw-good-food-guide/lankan-filling-station-20240117-p5exzv.html