Imam Banana Leaf Restaurant - A Review

We had dinner at Imam Banana Leaf Restaurant today. They used to have a single outlet, a coffeeshop at Lorong 1 Geylang. We have been buying food back regularly from there and we find their briyani very nice.

They just opened up a restaurant, behind their current outlet. We decided to give the restaurant a try and headed there for dinner. Turns out that the restaurant is open all day!

View from outside

A shot of the interior

As we didn't eat much for lunch, we decided to gorge a bit more for dinner :). We ordered 2 chicken briyani sets ($6 per set), 1 plate of cabbage and 1 plate of black pepper prawns ($5 per plate). For drinks, we ordered 1 iced milo and 1 iced coffee.

Chicken briyani

Chicken Briyani  :)

Generous portions of rice and chicken. They gave us the breast-meat portion that we requested for. The rice was flavorful but not overpowering, which seems to be a problem for most briyani dishes. The chicken was decent, though a bit too tough for my liking. The chicken gravy was really very good and went well with the rice. However, the amount of gravy they served us was insufficient and we had to request for an additional bowl. 

Each briyani set comes with just 1 papadam, which will annoy you if you're a fan of this fried appetizer. We ended up ordering 1 packet of papadam which costs $0.70 and came with 4 pieces.

The cabbage dish we ordered

 Cabbage :)

This cabbage dish was not on the menu. We asked the staff if they had any ala carte vegetable dishes and chose this when they said they had cabbage. Nothing much to  say about this dish. It came with slices of carrots and peas. It was nice and complemented the briyani well.

Black Pepper Prawns :(

The restaurant has two menus - Indian and Thai Seafood. This dish was on the Thai seafood menu and we gave it a try. But we regretted it. The prawns were tough, rubbery and extremely oily. In fact, I had to dab the prawns on the banana leaf to get rid of the oil. 

The prawns were quite bland and there was not much black pepper flavor. There were generous amounts of capsicum strewn on the dish and their smell was quite overpowering. Overall, we didn't enjoy this dish (even though the missus is a great fan of prawns) and will not order it again.

Nasi Goreng :(

We also ordered a packet of Nasi Goreng for the mother-in-law. It comes with an egg. It was quite bland and tasted like it had been burnt. We won't order it again.
 
Drinks

The iced milo was super sweet, even after 2 generous helpings of ice cubes. Delicious yes, but every sip feels like it brought us one step closer to diabetes. 

Total cost: $24.80

• 2 chicken briyani sets
• 1 cabbage dish
• 1 black pepper prawn dish
• 1 packet of Nasi Goreng
• 1 iced milo
• 1 iced coffee
• 1 packet of papadam

Overall - 7.5/10

We will definitely go back for the briyani and maybe, take the opportunity to try other dishes from their Indian menu. We have a feeling that their Thai Seafood dishes won't live up to expectations.

It is a good venue for large group gatherings as they have large circular tables that can accommodate lots of people.

Do leave your comments below if you've tried their food!