Asian Banana Leaf

Decent location, then I saw Sam B. And ran as fast as I could. I went there the next day and the building was not under lockdown, wth.

My husband & I went to the Asian Banana Leaf for the first time & we loved it! The menu selection is fantastic. What to order??? So much choice.
We ordered the smaller sized bowls of Wonton Soup & the Coconut Milk Soup with Chicken. As you can see from the pics, the portions were huge! And absolutely delish. This was accompanied by a Spring Rolls appie. For our main meals, we ordered the Pork & Prawn Cucumber Salad & the Pad Thai.
Honestly, everything was so, so good. No complaints at all. The service was excellent (however, at that time, it was virtually empty…)
The previous complaints abut the music must have been rectified because I believe there was music playing in the background, but at a very low volume.
We were so impressed with this find & we can’t wait to go back to sample other choices on the very impressive menu.

Pricy but aside from that they had great food, good selection of Asian beers, quick service, and even the bathrooms were very nice. I will admit, that another review posted, that the music selection was odd. They were playing western classical music and it didn’t seem to fit the setting of the restaurant at all.

I like this place :) pretty relaxing, good choice of selection; their rolls, satay, and wonton appetizers are good. Their coconut rice is unsweetened (it tends to vary with thai restaurants) but they provide ‘soy ketchup’ (like thick, sweet soy sauce) as a condiment, which is my favorite.
I crave their peaches and cream chicken now and then, and anything with lemongrass on the menu is a safe bet :) especially the shrimp on sugarcane. If you’ve never had a sugarcane skewer I highly recommend it.
It’s a nice place to go with friends as it is usually quiet. My only complaints are that sometimes the music is repetative (as others have said) and the restaurant can be quite cold at times (too much air conditioning). Other than that, it’s a nice place to check out if you want vietnemese but don’t want to drive too far.

April 2014 update
I originally rated this place 4 stars per info below. The last few months it has gone down hill big time. I have tried talking to the owner a few times but it does not seem to make a difference. It really is too bad because this place was very close to home.
Old 4 Star Rating comments from pre Jan 2014
Along with Thanh Thanh downtown, this is one of y two favourite Vietnamese style restaurants in the Edmonton area so far. Very good variety on the menu from traditional Vietnamese to more fusion dishes and a good selection of spicy dishes as well. A little pricey for this type of restaurant but given the food quality I am willing to pay the higher price.
Very few Asian restaurants have truly outstanding service so by Asian service standards this is is actually pretty good. Always friendly fairly fast etc. In Vietnam it is considered rude to bring the bill before it is actually asked for. Remember this or you could be sitting a long time after supper.
The one downer, we had reservations to meet friends there on Aug 4^th, only to arrive and find a sign saying closed Aug 4^th and 5^th (which is the long weekend). Don’t know if an emergency popped up but I will definitely mention it the next time we are in as it is pretty annoying.

So I’m writing this review with a timeline to start because first impressions have not been great
7:00pm — arrival
7:05pm — still not seated and restaurant is not even a quarter full
7:07pm — seated finally
7:20pm — finally received menus
7:22pm — order placed
7:30pm — finally received drinks, but only received one of two Vietnamese coffees and none of the water ordered
7:38pm — 2^nd coffee and waters arrive, coffee brewer leaks all over the table and they don’t seem to concerned with it, leave it for us to deal with.
7:51pm — food kinda arrives, 2 of 3 dishes arrive, and then they ask if the order is done??? We have to remind them that 1 more dish is coming.
7:54 — last dish arrives
Ok I know the beginning of this review has a lot of negatives to it, but there is redemption with the food:
— Shrimp with peaches and mayo, really delicious and a huge portion
— Sweet and sour pork, tasty and another huge portion
— Coconut grilled chicken, not quite what I expected, but still pretty tasty.
I will give this establishment another try based on the food, and will upgrade the stars if the customer service increases.

I couldn’t bring myself to give this 3 stars, meaning «A-​Ok» … because nothing was truly «Ok» about my experience. It’s a nice-​looking restaurant, inherited from one we used to enjoy, but that’s about it.
I found it a bit pricy for lunch — there are no specials or different menu — and for the price, I’d at least like decent napkins instead of a ’50’s burger-​joint metal dispenser of thin, scratchy ones on each table. (And ironically, the «burger joint» next door has far better ones available). I’d also like the waitress to come by occasionally and offer water or check on whether things were going well. There was literally no service provided, even though the restaurant was virtually empty.
Those 2 stars describe my food exactly — «meh — I’ve had better» — it wasn’t so bad you’d send it back, but it also was not enticing or a delicious experience. I felt like I was just getting through the meal, rather than enjoying it. Nothing we tried created that «oh wow, this is really good» reaction.
Sadly, I doubt if I will return, even though I was truly excited to have a source of Thai/​Vietnamese food so close to home. If the food had been great, I could overlook the total lack of service, but there was simply nothing to justify another visit. Sigh …

Pro: great food! Phở broth is full of flavor, huge portions and friendly service.
Cons: service is slow and they have to stop playing the same music over and over again.

If there was a 2.5 rating I’d give that, but I just CANNOT round up to 3 stars for this dining experience.
I brought my mother and daughter today to celebrate her first school concert — Proud Beaming Mama — she did great :-)
But… lunch was not so great.
Asian Banana Leaf is a new «Vietnamese and Thai» restaurant in St. Albert which has opened up in the place of the now defunct Indian Restaurant, The Copper Grain.
The inside is still beautiful and the atmosphere is inviting and spacious but that is where the good stuff ends.
I visited the washroom which was clean but pitch black and no light switch could be found inside. I had to elicit the help of staff to use their magickal powers to enlighten the washroom (I think the switch is probably on a main panel).
We decided to order the Appetizer sampler for $ 22.99 which listed: spring rolls, salad rolls, deep fried wontons, fried squid, green onion cake, and fried shrimp.
Upon arrival — it was missing the salad rolls altogether and something had been substituted for the «fried squid.» I waited for the waitress to return but she did not. Finally, I got up and grabbed a menu to review the description and walked over to the doors to the kitchen to signal for staff.
When the waitress came out she did not apologize and did not offer to rectify the situation. Instead, I had to convince her to come over to our table (and we were the ONLY table in the restaurant at 1115am) to review what we had received. Eventually she said she would ask if they could make the salad rolls. With regards to the deep fried squid, she said that the little balls on our plate were kind of like fish cakes but made with mixed pork and squid. I have had them before on vermicelli bowls and a fast one was not about to be pulled on me… It was anything but «fried squid.»
Anyhoo… The items were all overcooked unfortunately, the spring rolls were more like crunchy rolls according to my Mom — she didn’t even though my toddler would be able to bite through the ends. My daughter ate most of the green onion cake but even that was overly crunchy. The pork/​squid hockey pucks were greasy and sweet. When the salad rolls did arrive, they were smaller than your average salad rolls and did not contain any basil or garnishes — only pork, shrimp, lettuce, and noodles. The accompanying peanut sauce was pretty good.
For whatever reason, only two water glasses were brought to our table for 3. And even though we were the only customers in the entire restaurant, at no point in time did our waitress check in with us. I had to go to the kitchen to address the mistakes and find her for more water.
My Mom ordered lemongrass beef on vermicelli and I ordered grilled beef and shrimp on vermicelli — both were $ 12.99.
The vermicelli bowls were okay — nothing to write home about. The beef was okay, but definitely not tender. My shrimp were fair but slightly overcooked.
The fish sauce was fair — although, again, I prefer a more seasoned fish sauce. On the table was one kind of hot sauce which helped spice up our meal.
Our bill came to just shy of $ 50 when the 15% grand opening discount was applied (this discount runs through the first week of January 2013 if you’d like to give them a try…)
I had inquired if they made Pad See Ew (my husband’s favorite Thai noodle dish, and the waitress’ response was one of confusion and she suggested I try Pad Thai…)
I don’t think we will return… All of the Thai dishes which appealed to me were in the $ 18 price range and that’s just too steep for my blood for a quick lunch time bite.