"Staten Island, a ferryboat's ride south of Manhattan, is home to New York's largest community of Sri Lankans and most of the city's Sri Lankan restaurants as well. A smaller Sri Lankan community can be found in the Queens neighborhood of Jamaica. In recent years people might have needed to drive an hour — braving the airport traffic near JFK, swinging down to the Belt Parkway that girds southern Brooklyn and crossing the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge into Staten Island — for a taste of Sri Lanka.
"Lately, however, those cravings can be sated closer to home at Queens Lanka in Jamaica, a specialty grocery that also boasts a small but mighty kitchen and a few seats to accommodate dine-in customers. There’s no room for the weekend buffet that figures prominently in several of Staten Island’s Sri Lankan restaurants, but for curry, kottu roti and banana-leaf-wrapped lamprais, there’s no need to leave the neighborhood.
"Rasika Wetthasinghe is the chef; Suchira Wijayarathne runs the market. A helper assists with preparation in the kitchen a few days a week, and a number of the kitchen’s bespoke spice blends are prepared elsewhere, but by and large this is a two-man operation." Read more on Culinary Backstreets.
