Visiting mom and pop shops around Pettah - Culture Shock!

On Thursday, we visited the small shops around Pettah area to understand more about the edible oil market distribution in Sri Lanka. It was my first time seeing the loose oil trade and I had a "culture shock" moment for the first time! Haha, 96% of the edible oil in Sri Lanka is sold through the loose oil trade, meaning that customers bring their own containers/bottles to the shop, and the shop would fill it up using a dispenser. The advantage of loose oil is that it's really cheap, as there are minimal overhead costs and no packaging costs involved. However, the disadvantages are plenty. You wouldn't know what kind of quality oil you're getting and the shop owners can mix the oil with anything of lower quality (and you wouldn't know!!!) The quality of oil is definitely very dubious and you really wouldn't know what you're getting. Can't emphasize this further. Haha I'm just feeling really shocked and a little grossed out knowing that the food I've been eating over the past 9 weeks have been cooked using loose oil. Imagine all the damage done to my body... Haha.... Oh wells, I don't have a choice anyway since I'm here and I don't have my own kitchen to cook!

Shop in Pettah selling all kinds of beans

Look at the oil inside the bottle!

Constrast the loose oil to the bottled oil that you can find in Supermarkets! I rather pay a higher price for supermarket oil since the quality is much better! Haha, I'm so glad and thankful Singapore doesn't have loose oil trade actually!

On Friday, Raj brought us to eat at New Banana Leaf! Crab Rice and Curry costs only 350 rupees and the crab is good! It's my first time ordering crab in Sri Lanka because I thought that at such a cheap price, the quality would be bad. But this is actually really decent and value-for-money! :)

Look at my lunch feast! I ate sooo much :)

After lunch, we visited one of the street promotions that was done by Fortune oil! For every purchase of Fortune oil bottle, you get to spin a wheel and win some prizes! It's a sure-win but the lousiest gift (in my opinion) is the Fortune cap. Other prizes are awesome! You get to win bottled cooking oil and sauces.

#SriLanka #Colombo