THE two guys on the next table probably thought I'd had some bad news from my stockbroker.

I was afraid one of them might come over: "There, there, old chap, don't take it so hard."

Not since I first sat through the last reel of ET: The Extra-Terrestrial have I wept so much in public.

Cuisine with a kick does tend to reduce me to tears, though, and other diners appeared to remain dry-eyed while discovering the joys of the cuisine of South Indian and Sri Lanka.

The cooking from those parts is hot stuff all right, but it's also gorgeously rich and spicy and different.

If, like me, you associate the erstwhile Ceylon with tea plantations and cricketers with unfeasibly long names, Hanging Mangoes will be an education.

Here we were entertained by people whose evangelistic passion to promote the product is such that dishes, we neither ordered nor expected to pay for, were brought proudly to the table for our delectation.

Our hostess explained the similarities between the cuisine of South Indian and Sri Lanka and emphasised how distinct it was from the food preferred elsewhere in that region.

She recommended dishes that best represent the style of cooking and we started with a trio of treats, including something called cobimanchurian (£4.95) which is crunchy fried cauliflower infused with aromatic herbs and spices.

As the son & heir said, you'd never have believed that boring old cauliflower could be so deliciously exotic.

We also had mutton varuval (5.95), piquant curried meat with flavours of chilli and ginger, and the fabulous chilli fish fry (£5.95).

With these we had iddly (£2.95), the traditional spongy cakes of steamed rice flour, perfect for soaking up sauce or simply cooling the mouth.

For mains we had chicken curry (£4.95) and mutton curry (£5.45), both consisting of tender, lean meat, the second one cooked in such a way as to threaten the composure of those given to shedding tears at the table.

We were also invited to check out the cauliflower 65 and chicken 65, cauliflower florets and chicken pieces spiced with ginger, chillies etc, and deep fried.

Excellent, but why 65? Funny you should ask, for there are probably more than 65 theories as to how the popular snack got that name. Some say it's because it's the only dish prepared using all the 65 spices found in India, while others maintain it's the number of days taken to prepare the marinade.

Another faction says it comes from the age (in days) of the chicken used in making chicken 65, and it is also claimed that 65 is the pants size of Tarul Assani, the chef who is credited by some with inventing the dish nearly 200 years ago. Take your pick.

We somehow managed to finish both curries, as well as the 65s, plus the special chicken fried rice (£4.95), a tasty meal in itself really, and lighter than the Chinese version.

I don't think we made much impression on the parata (£1.95), a kind of nan bread, but small, circular and more flaky than the type we're more used to.

And we made little more than a token impression on the masala dosa (£4.45), a pancake with potato stuffing and a trio of dips.

Unlike most pancakes, dosas are crisp, brittle and wafer thin, rolled like scrolls. Ours had some mashed potato inside, and came with a coconut dip and some spicy ones.

You'd think that after shifting this lot we'd be stuffed and broke, but we were neither. The dishes come in manageable sizes, and the prices are reasonable, with mains costing no more than the starters, and in some cases less.

Which is just as well. Having finally dried my eyes, it would have been vexing in the extreme if a glance at the bill had set me off blarting again.