I went to a Sri Lankan festival, but I didn’t bring my full appetite - a poorly timed snack left me unable to eat as much as I wanted. That was a shame, because there’s apparently only one Sri Lankan restaurant in town, Tarzana’s Curry Bowl, and after having their signature dish, a bizarre stir-fry of tough strips of paratha with vegetables and some dessicated bits of meat, I have no desire to trek out to the Valley to try anything else from them.

I did finally satisfy my curiosity about the mysterious Sri Lankan treats called hoppers. Regular hoppers are coconut milk dosas cooked in a small pot, so they’re a bit thicker on the bottom than the regular crepelike South Indian dosas.

They’re the perfect shape for cupping some curry, or just a sunny-side up egg.

String hoppers are nests of rice vermicelli with the same kind of filling. I had a string hopper with a really tasty chicken curry (coconut sambal and a kind of salsa on the side), and while I could imagine the same dish over rice, I thought of the rice vermicelli (one of my favorite noodles) as a subtle improvement. I also had a regular hopper with egg, and the hint of coconut in the chewy-yet-crispy crust was lovely.