Chopsticks & Marrow

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Chopsticks & Marrow
One Good Thing: Lungi’s String Hopper Biryani

One Good Thing: Lungi’s String Hopper Biryani

Sri Lankan on the Isle of Manhattan, Not Staten . . .

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Joe DiStefano
Jul 18, 2025
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Chopsticks & Marrow
Chopsticks & Marrow
One Good Thing: Lungi’s String Hopper Biryani
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Kataifi? Nope, Sri Lankan string hopper stir fry.

There are many very good things at Lungi, so many that the East Midtown spot specializing in Sri Lankan and South Indian food snagged a Michelin Bib Gourmand last year. Since the restaurant is a client of Hall PR, I’ve eaten many of these very good things, including string hoppers, tangles of thin white rice noodles perfect for sopping up curries of the Sri Lankan and South Asan varieties, but last night I tried a string hopper dish that had been hiding in plain sight all along: String Hopper Chicken Biryani.

“So there’s no there’s no rice in it?” I asked our server. “Just string hoppers?” As a long standing fan of kothu roti wherein roti is chopped up and used to form the base of a stir fry and a fried noodle maven, I had high hopes for this new to me form of biryani. My foodie hunch turned out be right.

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