How do our food experts cook and eat? This week, @GuywhoCooks Manendra, takes our Q&A!

What was your first real kitchen cooking disaster? 
Ha! When I was around 15 (you know, those experimentative teen days), no one was home and my mom had already made rice and curry for me but I had this fried rice craving and I was like, alright, let’s do this! Anyways, I was making fried rice and I realized that I’m out of carrot but I do have beetroot and this brilliant idea of beet fried rice popped into my head. Turns out, beet fried rice is bitter and not edible in any capacity, so it was an absolute disaster.

How did the Guy who Cooks learn to cook? 
Well mostly on my own actually but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have ‘air support’! A very long time ago, when I was just learning to cook, I used to ring my mom in the middle of the night for instructions. And whenever I ruined a dish, I would call one of my best friends, Sajini, for help!

What’s your particular habit when cooking? 
There’s no such thing as a habit while cooking, although I do prefer to do the dishes before I sit down to eat my food. 

If you are put on the spot to prepare a dish – savoury or sweet?
Savoury not because I hate sweets, but the chances are high for me to ruin a sweet dish!

Your favourite childhood meal?
Well, if you ask my mom or my cousins or my aunts they’d probably go with sand!  But my personal favourite was always any food with seafood like shrimp, cuttlefish, squid and crabs.

What would your last meal be? 
A spicy chicken curry, coconut sambal, shrimp stir fry, lentils curry and samba. I’ll follow it up with Dodol and fruit and nut ice cream for dessert. I know that some of them don’t match up with the others but if it’s the last meal there’s no time to consider what the world thinks, right?

Easiest meal you would make to impress someone? 
I prefer Mexican one pots with either rice or quinoa. Although, the majority of the people who’ve tried my food are non-Sri Lankans and the dish they all want me to redo is Koththu!

What’s a dish you’d love to relive for the first time?
It’s actually not a dish but rather a drink. A Hefewizen or a Wesien Beer. I didn’t use to be a beer fan in the beginning but I must say that life in Germany has made it hard to avoid. White beers actually did the trick for me. 

What is an ingredient that should not be missing in your kitchen?
Maldive Fish, although sometimes I don’t get it.  I usually stock it in bulk because from around the place I live in, I hardly get any Sri Lankan groceries around. I have to travel around 200km up north to find one, unfortunately.

What dish would you eat but never make from scratch? 
I think Eclairs. A fellow blogger (Hashini) challenged me on Eclairs once and I am usually someone who can be competitive at times so, of course, I took up the challenge! I baked around three batches of eclairs to finally end up with just five good eclairs….

What’s the most adventurous food you’ve eaten? 
My German colleague at work made me eat ground raw pork. Fun fact about Germans, they love pork. So I tried this ground pork. I was a bit hesitant in the beginning, but I realised that it’s just like salami. 

Your favourite odd food pairing?
Roti / Bread / milk rice with treacle. 

If you could dis-invent a food, what would it be?
Wasabi, it just numbs you for nothing. I know the Japanese fans probably wouldn’t agree but you got to say what you got to say.

Your favourite food invention?
My adaptation of the Hawaiian mochi cake into a chocolate mochi cupcake. It’s made from Mochiko rice flour.

You travel a bit, what country had the best food?
Oh, it’s definitely Italy. I’ve had all sorts of seafood down there which is quite rare up here. The second best was Spain and for the same reasons.  In general, the Mediterranean has been my favourite in terms of food.