Randomness Guide to London Menu

A popular pan-Asian restaurant, mostly Malaysian and Thai dishes, on Battersea Rise, near Clapham Junction Station. Previously known as Banana Leaf, the chain has now rebranded itself to Banana Tree.

On a Tuesday evening in May 2008 just before 7:30pm two of us had a short wait for a seat, but the queue was getting quite long within the next half hour. The seating arrangement is familiar to many budget canteen-style eateries: long tables where people are fitted in as necessary. Service is brisk and food comes fairly quickly.

Ewan and Jo had some spicy corn fritter things (£3) as a starter, which were fried and very tasty, with some dipping sauce, easy to eat. Mostly people had bowls of the prawn crackers, though being vegetarians we were in the minority (but they looked quite substantial).

The house special is the Banana Leaf Meal (£8.80) for which you can choose from any of the mains except the noodles, and it is served with rice, a couple of the corn fritters, some prawn crackers, and a salad (with a £1 surcharge for prawn-based main courses, being a little more expensive). Individually mains are around £5.50-£7. I chose a mock duck stir fry with the Nyonya bean sauce with cashews (a thick sticky sauce), which was perfectly good. Jo's noodles (again with mock duck, around £6) were extremely tasty.

Vegetarians should beware of the rather idiosyncratic labelling on the menu. Dishes marked as "V" are mostly vegetarian but may have egg or fish sauce in them (just which, is usually indicated in the description of the dish). Dishes marked as "V*" are actually vegetarian, and one of those indicates a vegan option is available (the Thai basil & oyster sauce).

The total bill including a single glass of wine was around £25, including the gratuity (10% is added to the bill and is marked as optional), so fairly good value for the area.

See also:

• Time Out review
• Croydon Guardian review
• Trusted Gourmet reviews: 1, 2
• London Eating comments
• Qype comments