Bay Leaf - Indian Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Peoria

If you like Indian food, even if you only like it dumbed down to mild & hardly any spice, avoid Bay Leaf in Peoria’s downtown. It’s terrible. I’ve never given an Indian restaurant a bad review, they’re all small businesses who try so hard to succeed, I hate to leave a bad review, but this… this was the worst Indian food I’ve ever had. It was that the chicken biryani had no flavor. I didn’t even ask for it to be mild, I think they assumed. I eat some spice, man. I don’t like super spicy, but my mouth is used to spice after having actually lived in India, being married to an Indian, eating food made by Indian aunties…. What people here in the US say is spicy I don’t even taste. This was beyond mild. It was greasy rice that tasted like cardboard. The boiled egg in the biryani was old, and if you know about eggs or ever had relatives with a farm you’ll know how to tell by looking at the yolk. My grandpa had a farm, I know old eggs. The egg was old. Edible, eggs can be used a long time past expiration, but still noticeable. The butter chicken was disgusting. The sauce was not a lovely red sauce with a hint of that glaze from the butter, and being able to see the chicken in the sauce, just no - it looked like rusted gloop and you couldn’t see past the dark orange pastiness of it, you had to dig out the chicken from this paste. Nasty nasty nasty. The sauce didn’t taste terrible, the texture was bad, but even the taste wasn’t right. It was too acidic and heavy. Butter chicken IS heavier, but it’s got a creaminess and a slight tanginess from the tomatoes, but the butter, as with any dairy, brings down that acidic nature. This was just gross. The texture was just so bad. I had 3 bites and stopped....

I don’t leave reviews often. Don’t believe me? Check my profile. I think I have a total of like 6 reviews and they are mostly negative. This place is an exception, my server “Brad” was absolutely fantastic. Extremely understanding and willing to provide the best customer experience possible. Food selection was vast but not overwhelming….this is my second time here and I ask you to try anything it would be to make sure with whatever you order, make sure you get the cheese naan bread. It’s absolutely amazing. I have not been disappointed in the slightest both times I came here. Give it a good try. They do their best to work with you if one of your dishes is a bit spicier than you’d expect.

5/5 is my rating. I will come back for a 3rd, 4th, 5th and many more times after that. The prices are just too fair even with rising inflation. For someone who’s a picky eater. You did a wonderful job Bay Leaf. Thank you! For the...

We called them to book a table for 8 and they told us that they dont allow booking and the tables will be usually available. When we reached the restaurant around 8 PM the restaurant was full and they didnt have room. were told to wait for 15 minutes which is the usual case. Waited for 30 minutes only to hear from the staff that they cant accommodate us and were told to LEAVE.

Imagine a place like Peoria and at 8:30 PM we were told to look for another place to eat. While we requested that we called them to book a table, they took another 15 - 20 mins to arrange a table for us and there we are. All the tables were vacant upstairs but they still didnt want to serve us. They made us beg for the table.

We ordered thums up, a indian soda and were served to find the SODA has EXPIRED more than a month back. That was awful.

Food was good but serving expired soda was not expected. We cant check the expiry all...