Cafe Banana Chill sounds like someplace you'd find at some remote part of some beachy end of Sri Lanka. And while it does feed to that Flower Child persona in us, it's actually found in a tiny room in Kandy.
With a menu that's more or less completely vegetarian, it's still not a bad place to get some breakfast, even if you eat meat. Here's how our experience went.
Ambience
Straight out of a storybook, the ambience at Cafe Banana Chill comprises of a tiny room in the ground floor of a building that's as nice as it could quite possibly be.
Almost the entire cafe is covered with murals like this. With small notes taking up every other available inch of space that the cafe has, the ambience, while it is more intimate than most is actually not that bad.
They've got enough space to seat at least 10 people if necessary and while it could feel a tad crowded then, it's a great place to sit and get some work done if there aren't that many people dining in.
The Food
Cafe Banana Chill does fancy vegetarian food. Most of their dishes are bread-based, but they do have things like pancakes up for grabs on some days.
We happened to drop by on a day when they didn't have pancakes, thus why we decided to go for a Mushroom Toast (Rs. 850) instead, which is more like their take on avocado toast.
Charging Rs. 850 for avocado toast is a bit of an eyebrow raise for many of us. But, this particular Avocado Toast was worth every little bit you spend on it.
See what we mean?
I personally don't like this picture all that much, simply because of how small it makes the dish look. But trust us on this, it was massive! With enough food to serve 2 very hungry individuals without batting an eyelash, it was fantastic.
It featured 2 slices of bread (at least an inch in thickness each), a heap of mashed avocado and an abundance of veggies.
The bread was homemade. It was powdery on the sides, crunchy and super fresh. And the veggies followed suit as well. A combination of gherkin, cherry tomatoes, salad leaves, bell peppers, basil, a generous heap of tempered mushrooms topped with a vinaigrette dressing and served with a small piece of lime, we absolutely loved it.
The vegetables were super fresh and with the sauce and the tomatoes giving a bit of sour acidity to the creamy avocado. The bread added a bit of crunch to the whole thing while the tempered mushroom gave a slight curried feel to it when you eat it and it was, hands down, the best avocado on toast I personally have had, period. Even the Peanut Butter Shake (Rs. 340) was brilliant too. A blend of chocolate, bananas, milk and peanut butter, we loved it. The shake wasn't all that thick and you could barely taste the banana. But, with a light sugary note and a very small hint of chocolate pulling through, it's a must-have if you're into peanut butter.
Service
The staff at Banana Chill was super nice. They were super welcoming from the moment we arrived and made not only makes small talk with you, just so that you don't feel awkward, but they helped us with getting a taxi when we were leaving as well.
Plus, when we first arrived and asked for the Peanut Butter Shake, they first said that they were out but were kind enough to run to the store to grab some peanut butter, just to serve us.
Conclusion
Cafe Banana Chill may do vegetarian food, but they do it so well that you don't even miss your share of meat. A definite recommend on our part.