Ceylon Flavor

The food was fresh and fab! The place is neat. We ordered Masala thosa and a chicken kothu and it was fab! Good decent prices. Waiting to try more :)

Let me start off by saying I’m all about the food.
I read the reviews on Unilocal and decided to give a try.
Now things to know
1. They only allow dine in on weekends (friday/​saturday sunday) I didn’t see this anywhere and luckily we came on a saturday night. Anyone else who knows this place must know this as we were the only ones in the restaurant.
It took a few minutes before anyone noticed we were even there!
2. the advantages of take out is that the prices are cheaper and you get a 10% discount if you pay cash!
The food:
first time: dine in
We ordered 1. Crab Vadai (they are very fresh, the coconut sambal was great, not greasy considering they are deep fried.
2. String Hopper Kothu — veggie
none of the vegetables are frozen (they state that in their menu) HOW RARE! tasty though I did put the coconut sambal on it and I think it added to it.
3. Veggi Kothu Rotti
nicely made too. Hubby thought it would be good after a hard day’s work. stick to your ribs kind of dish
Beautiful presentation. It did take time to come so if you’re in hurry… this is not the place to go.
2^nd time:
take out
we ordered
1. Neethu Peddi Pittu & 3 curries (which is a coconut and red rice? mixture with 3 veggie curries.
2. Mutton curry thali (so mutton curry plus 3 veggie curries)
3. veggie biryani
now even though they are not indian they described their biryani as cooked with a 10+ spice mixture… sounds good doesn’t it? But it wasn’t anything special. It was pink (from beets? I’m not sure. as for spicing I didin’t notice much except all all the chilis in the dish! there were plenty for me)
even though it was A LOT CHEAPER then eating in certain dishes like the Neethu Peddi Pittu is normally served in cone shape and I think putting in a styrofoam container somehow took away some of the texture of the dish as I noticed they cut 2 holds in the container to let the steam out. I think it would had benefited from being there from a presentation point of view and taste since the extra steaming would had not had occurred.
The curries were decent. very small for the veggies one, some better than others. nothing spectacular though and the mutton was the largest… which makes me think that ordering meat dishes here would be a really good deal.
I really liked the food and want to go back. I love the fact that nothing is frozen
I would order the take out again because I think it’s just so much cheaper but I think the dishes I ordered the first time would do better with take out. Though the mutton curry thali was just fine too. Biryani was nothing special.
Dishes I’d like to try still are the Seafood Khool which they only make on weekends. Being a soup that will be just a perfect take out meal.
if you have time and not in a rush… give it a try!

Dinner & Lunch
Ambience: 3.5−4÷5
Food: ⁴⁄₅
Service: ³⁄₅ (Friendly…but very slow)
Value: ³⁄₅
Repeat: Already have. But a little on the pricey side.

First time ordering here. I called in to get takeout, better to call 30 minutes before since they prepare the food fresh which is great. I ordered chicken biryani (mild, with gravy on side) and it comes with some flavorful/​aromatic rice and tandoori chicken (well marinated). I also ordered mutton roll and the crab vadai which were both great along with side order of sauce and sambol. Definitely will go back. Staff is very friendly. Membership/​points system looks good too.

I gave this restaurant 4/​5, cause they only had one person serving but overall it was a warm atmosphere and very clean place. The food was great!!! I ordered the Mutton Biryani with fried egg and my friend order Veggie Kothu (which was dry) but fresh. The food was less oily unlike other Sri Lanka restaurants. The price was a bit high but I would definitely go back to this place !!!

The food was amazing, the staff (there was only one) was nice but she forgot the cutlery and did not top off the water. She seemed to be over worked.
It has a nice ambience to it nothing special though.
More people should really go here! It’s a good place a friend recommended it and I would recommend it for non sri-​lankans/​Tamils. It seems like a good place if you want to impress a girl too.

Authentic, flavourful, great food, nice atmosphere, reasonable price — highly recommended from one who knows food

Food here is fantastic. Crab vadai is a must try! The quality is second to none. There are some sketchy Sri Lankan restaurants out there but this is now my favourite sit-​in Sri Lankan restaurant. My only complaint are the prices. $ 90 for two people??? It’s not a stake house, it’s Sri Lankan food.

There are so many things that I want to write in this review. Firstly, thank you Rob T for reviewing and recommending Ceylon Flavor. Secondly, if you are looking for something different, I recommend making a stop here. Thirdly, if you cannot tolerate spicy food, don’t come here. If you love spicy food, not coming here is your loss.
The food: where do I start? Except for curry and buriyani, the menu is full of items that I have never heard of. We ordered mutton kothu and chicken string hopper kothu, both at mild spiciness. Both dishes were deviously flavourful, spicy, not salty and not oily. There was an amazing balance of flavour and spices without making it salty. The mutton tasted interesting at first bite, but the spiciness accumulated at every successive bite. At fifth bite, my BF reached for a cold sweet drink. The chicken string hopper kothu was mildly spicy by comparison. We had a crab vadai appetizer. It tasted fresh and mildly spicy. I also had a Coriander tea, and it was very fragrant but a tart too sweet for my taste.
The service was exceptionally attentive. The waitress went through the menu with us page by page, explaining the dishes. She returned to ask what we thought about the food, and if there was anything that needed improvement. They seemed to be eager to have feedback and to learn.
The interior design is clean, basic, but pleasant. There are many paintings on the wall that, according to the restaurant’s website, are available for sale.
In all, this is not an expensive, high end restaurant, but the food is unique, delicious, fresh and unapologetically authentic. If you are tired of Thai, Indian, Korean and northern Chinese food, I recommend you to visit Ceylon Flavor.

Before I proceed, a disclaimer: Exceptional food, five star quality. Service, one (at the most). We waited for 1.5 hours before we even received our appetizers. By the time we received the meal, almost 2 hours had passed. We ONLY received an acknowledgement of the exceedingly slow service when we raised it and we never even received our dessert, for which we paid, as we could not wait for another half an hour. The waitress kept disappearing into the kitchen throughout the entire time we were waiting because she did not know how to deal with the situation and my husband had to knock on the kitchen door twice to find out what was going on — and he had to ask for a knife and fork (I had mine, he did not have his). Bad kitchen organization. This is a place where you would do best by ordering way, way in advance, by telephone, and ask them when its going to be ready, i.e. how long is it going to take. The food is good and worth taking out. But unless you have the entire afternoon to waste, go somewhere else or take out from this place instead. This appears to be more a catering-​type establishment and/​or take out but not conducive to dining in. Before leaving the waitress said she’d «give us a free dessert next time». Excuse me? Free? We already paid for it (but did not get it).

WARNING: Somewhat long review.
I was organizing an art event in Markham on Sat March 16 2013.
I figured it would be great to get a local resto/​take out, so that it would be close, and support a small business.
The first hint of greatness was their prompt reply to my email. Small South Asian/​Tamil/​Lankan resto’s usually never do. Usually no one even speaks English at any of these places. So that was amazing.
I received an email and went back and forth with who I believe to be the owners son.
We had a couple hundred dollar budget for food for the event and needed to feed 20 people lunch.
He customized a menu to suit our needs. I wish I could take the time to go into the details of great fine ingredients of all the dishes but I will highlight for you some.
We ended up with: Crab Vadai (Never had this — amazing, usually just plain vadai — soft doughnut comparison, this one with Crab!), Mutton Rolls (typical deep fried sri lankan spring rolls), Spring Rolls with our housemade spicy sauce and sambal. You MUST try the housemade spicy sauce.
Mains:
Their signature Seafood Fried Rice and Mutton Kothu (roti chopped up, mutton, a naturally dry, delicious dish) and Eggplant curry, a cold yogurt based cucumber salad to offset the heat.
— Seafood Fried Rice contains Squid, Shrimp and Crab meat
–Premium quality lean meat for Mutton Kothu
–Vegi Fried Rice does not contain any frozen vegetables (all hand cut fresh vegetables)
–Spice level as well as ingredients can be customized to preference
I got a phone call from a woman at the resto to ask about how spicy and levels of gravy. The customer service was unreal.
Being part Sri Lankan/​Tamil I have been to every food joint from take out to better take out to proper restaurants and this by far was the best experience yet.
They are on point, even to their Internet business side, they are tech savvy.
Everyone messaged me after the event about the food being spectacular.
They came and delivered the food with tags to name the food, and cutlery.
I could not ask for a better catering experience, and if I haven’t spoken enough about the food, it is because it was all scrumptious.
Important side note: I only contacted the resto on Thursday night to cater for Saturday afternoon and they were very honest about the fact they needed time to make the food as there is a definite emphasis on fresh food.
I hope you all get a chance to dine in, I have not yet and it is next on my list. Worth the drive to Markham.
Thank you Ceylon Flavor.

I can’t believe this restaurant doesn’t have any reviews yet.
My wife and I aren’t very familiar with Sri Lankan food, but we’ve visited twice and were very impressed both times.
First of all, the reason I went with 5 stars is because the servers are so extraordinarily helpful and make great recommendations, which makes all the difference when you aren’t familiar with a cuisine because it makes it so much less intimidating.
My favourite dish so far is the Kothu beef, which is diced flat bread, with eggs, onions, and spices, was fantastic! I enjoy spicy food, so I asked to have it spicier, which they gladly accommodated.
If you enjoy spicy south asian food, give this place a try!
It’s in a Tamil-​focused series of plazas on the southeast corner of Markham and Steeles. If you can’t find it, it’s in the blue building closest to Markham Road.