It was a Friday night in Glasgow, and in true West Coast fashion, the heavens had opened. I cursed my unreliable brolly as I hurried down Kelvin Way, clutching a bottle of £6 Merlot. I was meeting some old friends from uni, who I hadn’t seen in a couple of months, and we were looking forward to finally trying Banana Leaf, a South Indian restaurant on Old Dumbarton Road, which had been recommended to each of us many times over the years.
I met Aidan and Eve in the Tesco round the corner from the restaurant, both dripping wet and clasping bottles of similarly priced wine. It was BYOB at Banana Leaf, with no corkage fee (a fact which had likely influenced the number of recommendations). We said our hellos then braved our way through the wet Glasgow night towards dinner.
Banana Leaf, as it turns out, is mainly a takeaway restaurant. We arrived at a fluorescent shopfront filled with waiting customers and harassed looking staff. We stepped back outside again; ‘Is this definitely the place?’, ‘I don’t know – people did say not to be put off by the interior’. On closer inspection, there was another strangely lit shopfront next door which opened up to a busy room with five small tables, one of which had just become available. With no sign of the waiter, we nervously took our seats.
The room seemed to be attached to the takeaway by a kitchen space at the back. Through an open door we caught glimpses of equally harassed looking chefs hurrying about with big steel pots. Aside from the store-front window we were sat beside, the restaurant looked very much like someone had made a spur of the moment decision to convert their front room into a dining establishment. We took in our surroundings, noting the random assortment of patrons: a group of students with decidedly RP accents laughing in the back corner; a pair of women, one older, one younger, both with brightly coloured hair; and at the table next to us, a young couple excitedly chattering about how the babysitter might be doing on her first night on the job.
We started to wonder if we were meant to order from the takeout section of the restaurant after a full 15 minutes had passed before our waiter (decked out in a Christmas shirt covered in cartoon Santas – it was February) arrived with some menus. He then returned with a couple of plastic cups and a bottle opener for our wine just a few moments later.
The menu was overwhelming, three pages full of promising dishes and words we didn’t understand. Looking around the room, each table was covered in small bowls and stainless steel dishes; this was to be a shared dining experience it seemed. A brief discussion about what we would order ensued (I am vegetarian, my friends are not) and we settled on: Medu Vada; deep fried donuts made of a lentil base and served with coconut and tomato chutneys; Masala Dosa, a large pancake style dish stuffed with potatoes and also served with chutneys; Kadalai gassi, chickpeas sautéed and cooked with south Indian spices; Tomato Pappu, a medium spice tomato dish with lentils; and Bagara Baigan, an aubergine based curry. Each main dish is served with either a paratha, a portion of basmati rice or two chapatis. We opted for a paratha and some rice.
We ordered from the waiter in the Christmas shirt, who was the only member of waitstaff working that night, and seemed to run the takeout too judging from the long periods of time during which he disappeared through the back. Eventually, he appeared with the jug of water that we had asked for when we first sat down, which was promptly delivered to the couple at the next table along with another three small plastic cups. The following comical and polite interaction about who should get the water – ‘Oh no take it, you asked for it’, said the woman, ‘But we need it!’, was the slightly whiney, stage-whisper response from her husband who was clearly struggling a little with the spiciness of his dinner – resulted in our table sharing two of the tiny cups and them drinking from the last one. None of us wanted to wait twenty minutes to ask for another jug.
When the food finally arrived, however, it was well worth the wait. The dishes were small and crowded with flavour. We tucked in heartily, ripping shreds of paratha, dunking them in the steaming sauces and slathering them in the colourful array of chutneys. We were unsure if we had ordered too much or too little as Mr. Christmas shirt had been less than enlightening when we sought guidance on the issue while ordering; but as it turned out we had got it just right.
Feeding frenzy over, we sat back and sipped our cheap wine out of plastic cups, feeling fully satisfied. We concluded that the Kadalai Gassi had been the favourite, closely followed by the surprisingly light deep fried lentil donuts, Medu Vada. The whole meal came to about £26, which we sent Aiden back out in the rain to collect from the nearest cash machine, as, being typical millennials, none of us had through to bring any with us.
Eating in Banana Leaf was like one of those moments you hear people talking about in movies or books: ‘Oh do you remember, darling, back when we were completely broke – that little place with the plastic cups and the giant dosas?’. It felt like a markedly student experience, yet as we sat by that window, we watched families, middle-aged couples, and young professionals alike approach and peer through the heavy condensation, hopeful for a table.
The food was undoubtedly delicious, yet I couldn’t help but wonder: was it the experience – the wine, the rain, the comedic interactions – that made the dishes quite so gratifying, or was it that the incredible food made a potentially unpleasant evening memorable for all the right reasons?