I have heard so many good stories about the home made Sri Lankan curry at The Barricane Beach Cafe, Woolacombe (click here for its Facebook page), that it became almost number one on my bucket list! Finally, whilst our fussy daughter was in rehearsals in the summer, we drove over to Woolacombe to try the curry. It was a bit of a damp miserable day and so the beach hut had closed for the evening = no curry! 🙁
A couple of weeks later, we decided to try again and I did the sensible thing and rang in the afternoon and checked that they would be open that evening. I was assured that although light rain was forecast, they would be serving curry.
Friends of ours have also always wanted to try it, so we all finished work and drove over to Woolacombe. Barricane beach is just beyond Woolacombe Bay on the road out to Mortehoe. The beach was fairly busy with families watching the tide coming in and eating and drinking. It has such a fabulous atmosphere – very chilled out and bohemian! We had packed a cool bag full of beer and soft drinks, so that we could sit and watch the sunset after eating. Fortunately for us there was a rain shower just before we sat down, which meant that lots of people vacated the beach! The lovely owner then dried off all the benches and tables and we were able to grab a table relatively easily!
Hubby and I ordered chicken curry for the kids and one chicken and one vegetable curry for us, so that we could try both. The curries came automatically with yellow lentil dahl, rice, poppadoms and a side salad coleslaw type thing called a sambol. Now Mr D and I are very particular about our curries – we have both been very spoilt growing up in North London and having a variety of friends with Asian parentage who loved to feed us both – and so this curry had a lot to live up to…..and it didn’t disappoint either! The food tasted divine!
I am not a huge fan of yellow lentil curry – I find it quite dry and mushy, but the flavour of the Barricane Beach Hut’s dahl was really really good and in fact that was my favourite dish. The vegetable curry was aubergine (again not my favourite) but very well spiced and full of flavour.
My only criticism was the chicken curry. It was a dry curry, which tasted lovely, but consisted of only a couple of pieces of chicken – in fact there were four to each plate. It did look rather meagre. The kids, whose vegetable intake is generally forced (!), were a bit put out as they would have happily eaten a whole plate of chicken curry and rice and as it happened they only had a small portion of chicken to go with the side dishes of lentils and rice on their plates.
Having said that the taste and quality of the food was very good. The location was amazing and definitely one to experience.
Opening hours: Open daily: 17:00 – 20.00 – when the weather is fair and until the curry runs out!
Gluten free friendly: All the curry is gluten free.
Child friendly: Children and babies are very welcome. Table space is limited, but there is a beach to sit on.
Disabled access: A bit of a steep ramp down to the beach.
Dog friendly: Dogs are welcome.
The nearest toilets are on Woolacombe beach, so make sure you go before you get there!
