Apollo Banana Leaf
Sri-Lankan and South Indian
190 Tooting High St SW17 0SF
£
My mum came back from an evening at Apollo Banana Leaf raving about amazing Dosa's, Curries and how cheap it all was. After checking reviews online these seemed synonymous, most places awarding Apollo 4 star ratings and claiming it was a local gem.
I went to Apollo a few weeks later as my grandparents were down and my Grandad is partial to a damn good curry. The place looks pretty run down from the outside - around a 5/10 minute walk from Tooting Broadway tube station towards Colliers Wood, it is lit up by a flourescent neon sign almost as brash as the decor inside. The seats are a bright purple satin and the artwork on the walls is of painted jungles and rainforests. Camp and cheesy is one way to describe it, another is bizzare.
Now, the decor simply shouldn't matter if the food is as good as everyone says. The sad thing is, it isn't. The onion bhaji's were impressive in terms of size, but tasted more like onion rings: there was an emphasis on batter and not much on taste.The curries were ok, some standard flavours and a decent amount of spice went in but overall it was a tad sloppy and the meat was tough. The famous Dosa's were a bit of floppy bread with some minced meat inside - thoroughly disappointing given the rave review my mother had given them. The crab curry, supposedly 'the best on the menu' was near impossible to get into, and when we asked them to take it back and do it for us they refused. The essence of Crab we managed to get out of the claws was nice enough, but again the sauce tasted samey and uninspiring.
Whatsmore, Apollo wasn't as cheap as I expected. It benefits from BYOB which undoubtedly saves you a lot of money, however, the Curries come in at around £10 each, whilst the Rice is £4. If you then go on to order a Dosa £6 and Onion Bhaji's £2 each you're in for a pretty pricey meal. In an area with such strong competition, and the reviews this place has, you would expect top notch grub for prices like this.
The service here also isn't great; we waited over half an hour for our table to be cleared before we had to end up asking them to do this and the waiters rush you (ours brought over the bill without us asking). To top off the disappointment, I had terrible stomach cramps the whole of the next day, which is never a good sign.
If you're in Tooting you really should be getting quality curry with good service at decent prices. Unfortunately, Apollo for me falls short at each of these points. After returning (not my choice) a few weeks later and being told there wasn't a table available for another hour on a Tuesday evening I was shocked. Do yourselves a favour, cut out the walk, the wait, the food hangover the next day and go up the road, past Tooting Market to Mirch Masala, for a much more enjoyable curry in Tooting.
OVERALL RATING: **
http://www.apollobananaleaf.com/
