Hoppers and String Hoppers: The Sri Lankan Breakfast Toronto Is Missing

Bowl-shaped, lacy, and unlike anything else on a Toronto breakfast menu. A plain-English guide to hoppers and string hoppers.

Of all the things Sri Lankan cooking does that nobody in Toronto talks about, breakfast might be the biggest miss. Hoppers and string hoppers are two of the most distinctive foods in the cuisine, and most people here have never had either.

Hoppers

A hopper is a bowl-shaped pancake made from a fermented batter of rice flour and coconut milk, cooked in a small rounded pan and swirled so the batter climbs the sides. The result has a crisp, lacy edge and a soft, spongy centre. The fermentation gives it a gentle sourness, a bit like a very light dosa.

An egg hopper is the same thing with an egg cracked into the middle as it cooks, so the yolk sits in the bowl. It is, without exaggeration, one of the great breakfasts on earth.

String hoppers

Completely different food, confusingly similar name. String hoppers are nests of steamed rice-flour noodles, pressed into flat discs and steamed until soft. They are mild and delicate, which is the entire point.

They exist to carry other things. You eat them with curry, with dhal, with coconut sambol, tearing them apart to mop everything up.

How to eat them

With your hands, and with curry. These are not standalone dishes, they are vehicles. A proper spread means a few hoppers, a dhal, a chicken or fish curry, and a coconut sambol on the side. You build each bite yourself.

Why Toronto sleeps on this

Because they are labour-intensive. Hoppers are made one at a time in a dedicated pan. String hoppers are pressed and steamed by hand. It is the kind of food that survives in family kitchens and disappears from commercial ones.

Try it in Scarborough

We are a family-run halal Sri Lankan and Indian kitchen in Scarborough. See what else is worth ordering in our guide to the best Sri Lankan dishes to try, or read about Sri Lankan food in Scarborough.