Bayleaf Restaurant, London

Now being from an Asian background, I have to say that I’ve grown up eating some pretty amazing dishes at home. My mum’s definitely the best cook alive (ma sha Allah), and to this date I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to an Indian restaurant and walk out content with the food that I’ve had. What I’m trying to say is – when I go for Indian food, I’m hardly ever impressed, more just satisfied. This restaurant however, was different.

Me and some friends were in the North London area after work, and found this restaurant in Whetsone that boasted some pretty impressive awards on their website, so we figured we needed to add it to the blog!

Located down the road from Totteridge & Whetstone station – this is definitely one to add to your lists!

Hats off to the guys here for their presentation, and their knowledge of the menu! We asked the waiter to recommend us a starter and he chose for us the ‘Samandar ki Bhojan’, as well as another Nepalese starter. Now i’m not a big fan of prawns as you’ll have noticed from my other reviews, but I do like to give them a go – and damn were these good prawns! Succulent to the T, and the presentation with the smoke covering the whole table just topped it off!

Being 3 hungry lads – we pretty much ordered everything from the menu. What you see here is: the Lamb shank (which was my personal favourite) as well as the Aloo Gobi, Achar Gosht, Dhaal Makhni and Darbaari Chicken!

Definitely a large quantity of food, but I’m pretty sure the chef could have put the plates straight back onto the table as we literally cleaned them all up and didn’t leave a crumb! If you’re visiting, give the Lamb Shank a try – the meat is so soft, literally falls off the bone and I need to ask the chef what he put inside next time I’m there – because I need some of that stuff at home!

For dessert, we had Chocolate samosas (pictured above) which I was quite skeptical about but they really work – who would have thought?!