Apollo Banana Leaf

3 Reviews on “Apollo Banana Leaf”

• CURRYBOND

  After our early Sunday afternoon Bond we’ve got some time to kill, so with eight CURRYBONDers in tow we dip into a nearby recently refurbished drinking hole, The Trafalgar Arms. After a few un-official but rather tasty local beers we pick up an extra couple of rather reluctant CURRYBONDers. Unwilling to experience the wonders of George Bond we welcome them into the fold for the curry leg, as CURRYBOND is a liberal church they are more than welcome for just half a CURRYBOND.Fortunately the official CURRYBOND start time remains and as we pass the accursed Onam we arrive at our premature visit to Apollo Banana Leaf, a Sri Lankan restaurant in the lower reaches of Tooting, a few minutes south of Tooting Broadway. It’s a double fronted wonder but for some reason the owners have adopted the one side open one side shuttered look.With our biggest ever curry leg we take our seats, unfortunately on the shuttered side. The decor is bright and colourful, with a number of landscapes possibly Sri Lankan but the provenance of the mirrors is obvious, IKEA, that’s right those thin wobbly ones. The overall ambience is good, not fancy restaurant good, but good for CURRYBOND. Apollo Banana Leaf gets a Venue score of 5.6/10The menu looks good, a nice mix of interesting looking Sri Lankan dishes and the more conventional curry house fare. We dive into the starters and with ten CURRYBONDers we get a good look at this variety with dosas, puris, and of course our sixth entry to the Bhaji Bible. This particular bhaji is another onion behemoth. A Frankenstein of both the ball and crustacean style culminating into a giant spikey onion ball. The result is good, tasty bhaji with a nice crunch. They get a bhaji score of 7/10.Next stage, bring on the curry. No surprise, there’s a lot. On the menu for CURRYBOND six, Chicken Biryani, Saag Chicken, Lamb Rogan Josh, Chicken 65, Chicken Jalfrezi, Chicken Tikka Masala plus a whole load of other things I can no longer remember or read from the somewhat scribbly receipt. The reference CTM is nice, thick, creamy with good hunks of deep read chicken tikka. First impressions were good. I look at my Chicken 65, also large chunks of deep read chicken, this time rather dry but nicely spiced. I ask around my fellow CURRYBONDers. The Banker, who may have ordered a Jalfrezi in every curry establishment so far looks a bit concerned at his rather milky dish with red clumps sticking out. This one is not so good…To sum up the currys on offer, mixed. It seems some of the more conventional curry dishes aren’t really the fort of this establishment and perhaps the CURRYBONDers should have been more adventurous and branched out into the interesting looking Sri Lankan attractions on offer. Not a total disappointment but not a contender in the food stakes unfortunately. The CURRYBONDers award Apollo Banana Leaf with aFood score of 6.5/10.With fat bellies and one too many empty Cobra bottles left on the table we call for the bill. Benefitting from the another BYOB policy the total comes to 131.15 that’s a solid 13.15/CURRYBONDer. A solid effort in the value stakes to bring the scores around achieving aValue score of – 7.3/10.We end CURRYBOND #6 with the official photo and tot up the overall scores. The CURRYBONDers give Apollo Banana Leaf anOverall score of 6.5/10.

  July 2, 2016, 3:05 am

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• Connie Consumes

  Another quiet Friday night in means another Tooting curry house to be ticked off the list! We’ve already enjoyed some of the other popular ones such as the Jaffna House, Dosa N Chutny, and Lahore Karahi so it was only fair we gave the equally well known Apollo Banana Leaf a go.We started with the famous mutton roll, tasty but nothing remarkable, and a masala dosa, a valiant effort but still not as good as the Dosa N Chutny version. Our curries were pretty good though- the chicken ceylon was well spiced and had a decent amount of heat, while the saag mutton was creamy and rich with a lovely bit of sweetness.As always we ended up with way too much food, so got the rest to take away and headed off to the pub for a pint, or two because the bill is so cheap, you almost forget you’re in London! connieconsumes.com

  October 19, 2015, 9:21 pm

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• Ria Thomas

  After reading the reviews in this site we decided to go and try this restaurant out. The restaurant inside is very tacky and rundown but the menu look ok with lots of variety. We ordered a selection of starters to share between 3 the portions were really large and the starters where really tasty. The main course was disappointing after such a great start. Overall the bill came to 13 per person which is amazing value for all the food we had. It’s also great that you can bring your own booze as that often racks up the final bill. Would recommend for starters, but not main. I would go back!

  February 28, 2015, 6:22 pm

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