Most mornings, by the water
Breakfast at EKA Beach
Breakfast is included in the rate and made to order — cooked that morning for the people who are actually staying, rather than laid out in trays at seven and left to go cold. You can have it Sri Lankan, or you can have eggs and fruit and good coffee. Say which the night before.
It is also, after the beach, the thing guests mention most often when they write about staying here.
What a Sri Lankan breakfast actually is
If you have never had one, it is closer to a shared lunch than to toast. Several small dishes arrive at once and you build each mouthful yourself.
String hoppers — the coiled white discs. Rice flour pressed into fine strands and steamed into little nests. Light, almost neutral on their own, and designed to soak up whatever you put on them.
Pol sambol — grated fresh coconut with chilli and lime, sharp and bright. The thing that makes the rest work. If you eat one new thing here, make it this.
Dhal — lentils cooked soft in coconut milk with turmeric and curry leaves. Mild, warm and the usual bridge for anyone nervous about heat at eight in the morning.
Kiri hodi — a thin, pale coconut-milk gravy, often with onion and green chilli. Poured over string hoppers rather than eaten alone.
Kiribath — rice cooked in coconut milk until it sets, cut into diamonds, served with a chilli-and-onion sambol called lunu miris. Traditional at the start of the month and on anything worth marking.
Curries and mallung — usually a vegetable curry or two, and a dry-fried green of shredded leaves with coconut.
You are meant to mix them. Tear a string hopper, add dhal, a little pol sambol, some curry. Nothing is arranged in courses and nothing needs to be eaten in order.
On the table here
A typical morning: string hoppers and red rice, dhal, pol sambol, a vegetable curry, greens, eggs cooked how you want them, fresh bread, cut fruit, and coffee from a press rather than a jar. Not every dish every day — it depends on what the market had.
There is no full restaurant here, and this is not a hotel buffet. It is four rooms' worth of breakfast, cooked in a kitchen by the terrace, brought out as it is ready.
Practical things
You do not have to eat Sri Lankan. Plenty of guests want eggs, fruit, toast and coffee, and that is entirely normal. Nobody minds.
Heat is adjustable. Chilli is served alongside more often than cooked through everything, so you can control it. If you would rather have things mild, say so — it is easier to leave out than to take away.
Vegetarians eat very well in Sri Lanka. Much of a traditional breakfast is vegetarian to begin with. Vegan and other dietary needs are usually straightforward too, but tell us in advance rather than on the morning, so the shopping can account for it.
Timing. Let staff know the night before roughly when you would like to eat, and whether you want the Sri Lankan spread or something lighter. Made to order only works if somebody knows you are coming.
Lunch and dinner. Not served here — but Talpe's cafés and restaurants are close, and Unawatuna is two minutes away with a great many more.
What guests say about it
Across more than a hundred reviews on Airbnb, breakfast is one of the two things mentioned most — alongside the beach itself. Guests describe it as fresh, generous, cooked with care, and in more than one case the best they ate in Sri Lanka.
That is worth knowing when comparing places to stay on this coast. Breakfast included, cooked to order, is not what most rooms at this price offer.
Breakfast is included. So is the beach.
Four rooms with en-suite bathrooms and air conditioning, a few steps from the sand.
See Rooms & Availability →4.77 ★ out of 5 · 100+ reviews · Superhost