Restaurant Review: Banana Leaf Harbour

Category: Eating Out

Recently, we've been hearing raving reviews about the Banana Leaf Harbour and we at Lonumedhu decided to drop by for a little visit. If you are wondering where Banana Leaf is, it’s nestled amongst the many eateries and coffee places that are popping up at the still new Male’s southwest harbour.

We arrive there at around 2 pm. The place itself is jam packed, and we quickly set ourselves up at one of the two spots left.

Also, it’s a very windy day and everything is moving; hair, plants and trees, those anchored boats you see across the street. There are a few banana trees in pots, dotting the pavilion that houses Banana Leaf, swaying this way and that, struggling to keep their footing in the wind.

An up-tempo Hindi song comes from a speaker somewhere, and that combined with the wind, the buzz of the stand fans, the many conversations, the clicking and clanking of cutlery gives off a scurried feeling. Lucky for us, the song ends and a gentler one take its place, easing up the atmosphere.

A quick look around and we notice this; almost everyone is having the same meal. The rice that comes with a set of curries, served on a banana leaf; one we’ve been seeing being shared quite a lot on social media recently.

We don’t get much time to observe more as things really are swift at the Banana Leaf; we sit down, look this way and that, and here’s our waitress greeting us with a generous smile. She promptly brings us a menu when we request it.

We order the chain’s main fare the Banana Leaf Meal, with chicken, the one that everyone’s having and a mutton biryani. The first one is because we want to check out what the hype is about and the second because you just don’t get to have mutton in Male’ everyday.

A yellow tray with a banana leaf spread on it is placed in front of me. A waiter places my white rice on it, another places a few curries on it, and yet another places some more curried goodies on my leaf, and finally the waitress who took our order brought me my portion of chicken. The mutton biryani simply arrives in a pot and is placed in front of my friend.

We dig in. First, the Banana leaf Meal. It has quite a number of components. There’s of course the rice and the poppadum. Then there’s a dry potato curry, curried carrots and other veggies, a brinjal curry, a dhal curry, pickle, chicken gravy and a small portion of salad along with a couple of crispy fried chicken pieces.

We decide to have a go at every component of the meal before mixing it all up. The dhal is good, quite flavourful and creamy, the brinjal curry, superb; it’s slightly sweet with raisins in it, the salad is nice and crunchy, and the potato curry and the other vegetable curry are all right. As for the chicken, the portion is on the smaller side, and it could have been a disaster if the meal didn’t come with so many other components. The chicken itself tasted quite good, crisp and flavourful. Perhaps it could have been a tad bit juicier but that could just be us.

Moving on to the mutton biryani; first of all the mutton is really well cooked and really easy to eat, a commendable effort as whenever a mutton is ordered there’s also the risk of ending up with a mutton that’s rubbery. The biryani itself is quite nice, not that spicy, but quite easy to gobble down with the raita that comes with it.

There are desserts on the menu too and we want some gulab jamun. But on the other hand, all the rice is making us feel full, so we end up taking a rain check on that.

The bill arrives and it’s MVR 240; that is for the two meals and a small water bottle. The food is good; the service is fast and friendly, so we think the price is quite reasonable, compared to some of the other options around, perhaps not for everyday, but for that occasional lunch that you splurge a little.

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