Apollo Banana Leaf

I love this place, probably my favourite restaurant in Tooting. I’ve yet to have a disappointing dish here and I’ve been dozens of times. Love the seafood kothu and prawn puri. Ridiculously cheap and BYO.

Poor. Not recommended.
Main course (chilli chicken) was served cold. Clearly the kitchen relies on warming up with a microwave. Heated when requested.
Chappati was dry and stale.
Caulifower okay.
No salt lasi available only sweet mango which contained undissolved sugar crystals.
Dishes were clearly pre-​prepared and not fresh. Poor.

As good as it gets.

Love the food, particularly the plain dosa, butterfly prawns and the paneer masala. Being byo is fantastic. The pictures on the wall are unusual but the adds to the charm. We always get great food and service.

We weren’t expecting much and the décor perfectly matched our expectations. The walls are covered in what looks like Windows 98 desktop backgrounds, ranging from mountain landscapes to rainforest waterfalls. Powerful stuff.
It’s BYO with no corkage charge, which is always a bonus so I brought a few beers from my latest Beer52 box. Service was very informal but friendly and helpful, with a jug of water and a couple of beer glasses brought over to our table straight away.
James said this place was cheap and he wasn’t joking, with a couple of starters coming in under £1! We had some lightly spiced, crispy Cauliflower Pakoda (£4.25) and a Masala Dosa (£3.95), which is a massive, crispy pancake filled with spiced potato masala. There’s also a meat version for £5.50.
The menu is pretty large and has a lot of interesting sounding dishes including a whole mutton section as well as some seafood dishes. We asked the owner for a couple of curry recommendations and ended up with a Lamb Rogan and a Chilli Chicken at £6.50 each as well as some lovely Coconut Rice. The chicken dish was pretty average but the lamb was lovely. The sauce was well balanced and full of flavour with a subtle heat.

I mentioned I was thinking about going here and my south London friends went nuts because they love it. My vegetarian friend said «they even know the word ‘vegan’!» as he had gone with vegans.
Well, my server didn’t.
I explained it to him no problem and got lots of yummy curries. Except for my dosa. «It has a little bit of ghee in it. That’s ok right? It’s only a little bit.» So if you have allergies, be very clear!
Other than that, I ate an inappropriate amount for a pretty small fee. Pretty tasty. Value for money.
It’s a little walk from Tooting Bec station, but don’t give up– it is there on the right side of the street (I think Google tells you otherwise.) Also, because it’s so popular, make sure to book. We went when there was ONE other couple, and the waitstaff had to ask if we could eat and we could hear a whole argument between them! In the end we could stay IF we left in 2 hours…

Apollo Banana Leaf is the type of place where you go for the food and not the décor. For starter we had the samosas which were nice and spicy. For the main my gf and I shared the Jerra Lamb and Chicken Ceylon with a dhosa, coconut rice and spinach as a side. It was all very good and very good value for money. There was four of us there and it all came to about £50. Service was efficient and you can bring your own booze.

From the out side this place is certainly not a looker. After years of eating curry’s around the country and finding them fairly standard and bland, Apollo is a breath of fresh air. The flavours or plentiful, the dishes are devine, and sometimes spicy.

Apollo Banana Leaf may not seem like it would impress you. It’s got a non-​de-​script white sign on the outside and inside is plastered with wallpaper grainy photograph scenery of mountains and waterfalls. Not a place that looks like it would wow you.
But looks can be deceiving.
Our large group sat and were put down menus with options that went on forever. Page after page. It’s Sri Lanken food so Indian-​based with it’s own delicious style.
It was most definitely a sharing place so we ordered for the table. We started with mutton rolls, Samosas and King Prawns. The mutton rolls were the standout winner, being giant, breaded on the outside and delicious and warm on the inside. And they were 85p per roll! What! Yes.
We then did a bunch of mains, mostly focusing on delicious dosas (or thin pancakes with potato and meat on the inside) and kothu (sliced thin baked bread with onions, peppers, chillies, and meat stirfried together), which I had never tried before but was amazing. And the platter was monstrous and filled us all. God, it was so damn god.
But two things set this place apart to give it that legendary five stars.
First, they were able to take a large group of 10 people, last minute, without blinking an eye. They took of orders when we were ready (although we did have to look over and get their attention from the other room and make eye contact with the waiter, but still) and brought out all the right food. Too often I’ve found with big groups, the order is taken down wrong or something is forgotten. Not here, they nailed it.
Secondly, the prices. This may be the cheapest full sit-​down meal in London. After all the food we ordered about, it came out to only £12 per person, including tip. Most dishes are £3 to £4 and come with a ton of food. Insanely cheap.
Unassuming, delicious and cheap. It’s a place checking out for a meal with friends for sure.

I am at this place almost once every week. I am officially in love with this place! Start with fish cutlet, have some fried rice with devilled mutton, and maybe some fish fry. It is a family run place and you can’t leave the place without loving the friendly and warm owners. You just feel at home!

Huge flavours, huge portions and the tiniest prices. The best curry I’ve had in South London. And I’ve had several.

Interesting place, not my favourite but pretty good, it is kind of different than the regular ones.

When you first arrive at Apollo Banana Leaf I have to say the décor isn’t that inviting!
BUT once you have been seated by the very friendly staff it becomes a completely different place.
Apollo is BYO alcohol at no charge, the staff are fast at bringing out glasses and water and happy to help with any questions or recommendations!
The menu has a range of different choices, some Indian some Sri Lankan.
The food is delicious, I suggest you try the prawn purée, saag paneer or saag aloo for starters and for your mains you can’t go wrong with chicken tikka, fish curry or the chicken pakoda!
Then finish off with a mango lassi to help you digest all that amazing food!
Our household goes to Apollo about once week and our bill is never more than £10 each and we’re all struggling to move from how full we are.

Excellent food, service and price. As Americans we didn’t know that in some restaurants you could bring your own bottle of wine, but our kind waiter informed us and pointed to the liquor store across the way. No corkage fee either.

The slightly ‘kebab shop’ exterior, random fairy lights blinking away in the window, and the fact it’s smack bang in the middle of the ghost-​town gap between Tooting Broadway and Colliers Wood mean that this isn’t the kind of place I can imagine getting a lot of passing trade, we only visited here on recommendation of a friend who had been previously, and only then because they were trying to tick Sri Lanka off a list of cuisines they had tried.
I’m glad they suggested it.
It’s a standard bring your own affair (no corkage charges), with a menu that isn’t confusingly large. There are a good number of standard Indian dishes for the less adventurous, alongside the more interesting Sri Lankan dishes.
I’ve got no benchmark for the authenticity, but there were some interesting and different options on the menu to try (give the Paneer 65 and Chicken Pakoda a go), the food was delicious, quick to arrive but fresh, and most importantly of all, a bargain. Four of us shared five starters, plus four main courses and a chapati each, and it worked out at £10 per person.
Sure, by the time you add the bottle of beer we each had from the off license over the road, it’s closer to £15, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve paid for an Indian meal with a £20 note, and got a £5 note back in my change
The service was quick, friendly, and informative when questions were asked about the menu. They were straight over with glasses and bottle openers for our beers. It’s certainly a small and not remotely fancy place, but perfectly comfortable to spend an hour or two.
Thoroughly recommended. I’ll definitely be back.

I love this place and thought it couldn’t get much better… then it turns out it can.
How? Well since I’m rushed for time I’ll just tell you instead of my usual rambling. It has dosas for under £5 and some great lunch specials!
If you are there between 12−3pm, you can get a massive amount of kothu (think sliced paratha with onions, peppers, green chillies, and meat stirfried with spices) for just £3. Brilliant. I took 4 home.

Most of the curry in London is of the north Indian variety. My background is Sri Lankan Tamil (pretty much south Indian) and I get the equivalent of my mum’s delicious cooking at Apollo Banana Leaf in Tooting. My sister, cousins, uncles & aunts all agree this is the best place for our «home cooked food».
In my 2 years in London I average about once a month there (not bad since I’ve lived at least 3 zones away from it for most of that time) and pretty much always get takeaway to tide me over for a few days afterwards (the kothu comes out very soft and tasty even after a few days in the freezer and a quick microwave). All of the dozens of brown and otherwise people I’ve taken there will vouch for it’s deliciousness and to be honest I’d recommend making a booking even on week nights as it gets quite busy.
Quality everything on the menu… Personal favourites are the dosas, kothus, aubergine curry, squid fry, chilli paneer and the rolls. I think the only thing I’ve been disappointed with is the fish curry, but I’ve never been much of a fan of that anyway. You can ask for things to be made «not spicy», and they will oblige.
You will be full to the brim on £5, plus a little more for the BYO booze! Try it, you won’t be disappointed! My mouth waters just thinking of it! ;-)

Apollo Banana Leaf is located down the quieter southern end of Tooting High Street. Its cheap prices and proximity to St George’s Hospital means it’s often frequented by crowds of medical students.
The lure for me was the promise of Sri Lankan food, more specifically from the Tamil north of the island. In Malaysia, the ‘Indian’ food is from southern Indian/​Sri Lankan roots. and I sometimes feel like reminiscing.
Well, I can confirm that the taste is authentic, right down to the fiery heat from many of their curries. This is not the curry house for a curry virgin! Look out for string hoppers — bundles of rice vermicelli fried in curry. Try the dhosas — pancakes filled with spicy potatoes. Go for more unusual meats like mutton.
The décor may be minimal but service is fast and the prices rock bottom. Add in BYOB and you’ve got great value for money. Also, if you feel the fiery curry may just kill you, there should be a friendly medical student not too far away to save you, hopefully!

This is a good place for a quick Sri Lankan meal with a slightly South Indian edge to it. The meals aren’t purely Sri Lankan in taste, but makes a nice change. This is certainly no place for a family meal, seating arrangements are very basic.
I’d recommend trying the fish biriyani. It is lovely and is a nice variation to the usual lamb/​chicken/​prawn biriyani that you find at Indian restaurants. Don’t be surprised to find a paper table cloth on your table, as I said it’s pretty basic!