Clements restaurant all you can eat a la carte experience.

Written by Adeesha Achalanka

My friend and I, Christina, arrived at Clements Restaurants and Banquet in Wattala, Colombo around 05:30 PM for the all you can eat buffet. The entrance of the restaurant was decorated with LED color lights over their green shrubbery. The ground floor had the restaurant, then upstairs a banquet hall and also a bar. We entered the restaurant through automatic sliding doors and immediately were captivated by the change of atmosphere. From the moist climate and noisy road traffic outside to the air conditioned, coolly purple yet warm lighted ambience inside. Accompanied with a bit of pop dance music playing in the background. My guess is that the music’s being played at the bar upstairs. We were greeted by the brand manager of the place Asanka, who mentioned that this was the first time there is an unlimited all you can eat buffet for Rs.1950 per person in Sri Lanka.

After we were seated, we were able to get a look at the menu and place our orders.

As a vegetarian I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of dishes that were vegetarian friendly. My friend on the other hand is a proper foodie who will eat anything that tastes good and was excited to experiment with the menu. My friend placed the order first. Small burger bites, pasta, for dessert, caramel custard, and a chocolate milkshake. Then I went on to order. For appetizer onion and tomato bruschetta, cabbage and pineapple salad and cream of mushroom soup. For mains, creamy mushroom pasta and a vegetarian pizza, for desserts, fruit salad, room temperature water and a lime drink with medium sugar.
As we were waiting for our food to come, I was looking around the place and was able to take in the grand atmosphere. On the left side of the entrance inside the dine in space was a wooden showcase with various ornaments that resembled fine china to various little pieces of stuff. The tables were neatly arranged and there were decorative white stones underneath the glass overlay which rested on top.

As we waited, some more guests came in and had their photos taken in front of the decorative showcase.  A little after, our ordered drinks came through, my friend a chocolate milkshake and then the lime juice for me.

My friend was really enjoying the milkshake she had got. Few moments after the drinks came in, our appetizers were brought in. My appetizer of tomato and onion bruschetta came in along with the cream of mushroom soup and small bread buns along with a cold cup of butter.

The bruschetta was alright, it was a bit dry for my liking and the butter could’ve been slightly warmed as it was difficult to use the spreading knife to get some onto my bread bun. However, the cream of mushroom soup was really nice, creamy and delicious. As for my friend she said that she “loved” the bite sized burger appetizers, but was also thoroughly enjoying her “favorite” chocolate milk shake. Once we were done with our appetizers they brought in the main dishes, the service was now back in smooth operation. My friend got her pasta and I got my pizza. Delicious, the pizza is a thin crusted tomato sauce topped with roasted mushroom and bell peppers along with fresh olives and olive oil on the top. With a very sufficient amount of cheese. Enough to feel cheesy in every bite until the very last. It was the size of a medium to small franchise pizza but had a very rich flavor profile.

We were feeling good and the food was tasty. They thanked us and encouraged us to enjoy the rest of the evening. Once I was done with my pizza, I was served the creamy Alfredo cheese mushroom pasta. With every bite creamy goodness, the Parmesan cheese was just great and it kept me eating until I was properly stuffed. With a belly now reaching max capacity the fruit salad was a much welcome change. The fruits were fresh and cool. The variety was quite nice too, native bananas, papaya, mangoes and watermelon. It was delicious freshness that eased out everything else.

When we were done enjoying our meal, we had the chance to talk with the owner and manager of the restaurant Upekksha Fernando.

Tell us a bit of a backstory of this restaurant.

I’m Upekksha Fernando. This [Clements Restaurant and Banquet] is under the Lanka group of companies, which was started by my father. The start of this is basically seven years ago when I came down from Australia, I wanted to open a food truck and then I eventually did open up a food truck, and that was the first Sri Lankan food truck, full equipped brought down from China and we did all burgers hotdogs, rice and curry and everything we could have done. The problem with that was that there were no regulations at that time so seven years ago I think. so the police didn’t let us park wherever we wanted and the local businessmen because their concern was that they paid taxes and we didn’t. But then we tried to look for regulations where we could actually pay the local government and council and park our vehicles so that happened for a good six to seven months, it was super difficult… Our main business is ice but we were in the process of diversifying our group and then I spoke to him and said let’s start something. Just before Haley’s couple of months ago, we had an idea of building a restaurant and this was under construction and when Haley’s did approach us I said don’t come here there’s another area where potentially where we are cooking for you all and they did come and they enjoyed the food and everything and then we got Hayle’s, so that was a huge win for us, 1600 meals a day. I used to get up at 3 o’clock and go grocery shopping and everything. I used to do the entire thing because I wanted the experience… You know everyone does all you can eat buffets and it’s at same range but over here what we want to do is eventually change it up every six months so right now this concept is all you can eat a la carte from one to three and seven to nine so you have a lunch seating and a dinner seating also and from five course, so you have the appetizers the salad the soup and the mains desserts beverages everything this way the food is made fresh whereas a buffet is made way in advance and usually in buffets whatever’s in the lunch buffet comes onto the dinner buffet it gets recycled whereas here everything’s made to order. So that’s the concept you get a fresh meal all you can eat unlimited enjoy our food.

What’s your favorite dish?

That’s a good one
if I had to choose, I’d be lost, but I’d probably say the biryani.

What made you choose Wattala?

So this is our building, I’m from Wattala, my parents are from Wattala so I wanted to stir up the Wattala scene so I live in Colombo, there is nothing like this in Colombo, everything is a bit overpriced, so we were like enjoy your food and our thing is always been its to make money but its always always to get customer feedback because even if we get a four star rating on uber I’ll make sure I write the customer review comment saying please call us and let us know how we can improve that. I handle the uber reviews personally because I want to make sure that there is room for error, I mean I know cooks have an off day but that room should be very slim.  Because I overlook all the menu and the functions that we do between 200 – 150 caterings I’ll make sure I do a run through quickly of the food and make sure that the days are not the operations manager’s there so yeah, and it’s mostly about you know enjoy your meals because just be happy because that’s what food does to me, I’m a crazy foodie, I love food and I love mixing it up with different different combinations.

What is the future of Clements?

On the 25th of this month we are starting up a new restaurant in Chilaw, a hundred seater a food court that’s a completely different vibe to this that’s much more casual. It’s much more casual. It’s got a coffee joint and pastries and all that. Food court, crispy chicken and all that so customers don’t have to order. I mean they have an a la carte option as well but everything is laid out in a bay marie and its Clement’s Chilaw.

Writer’s final thoughts

The experience was very warm and fun, once the food started rolling in things smoothed out. The staff is very caring and the owner is very customer centric driven. I would recommend the restaurant and the unique A La Carte buffet experience to anyone who’s around Colombo interested in a very exciting and delicious food and hospitality journey right in the heart of Wattala.