Banana Leaves Asian Restaurant and Sushi Bar

Food was excellent, service was a little slow.

We chose the restaurant based upon reviews on Opentable. We were disappointed. We were very hungry, and our appetites were large. Some of us order Thai, some Chinese food. Neither was flavorful. The waitress was nice. We won't be back.

Really good food. Fresh, authentic, and delicious. Great service and good ambiance.

The menu is extensive with many great options for all tastes. The portions were generous, the drinks were delicious and the food was absolutely delicious.

Happily accommodated our group of 12 for a going-away lunch for a co--worker. And separate checks! It all worked perfectly.

Ordered the Tom Yum soup to start...chicken was overcooked so it felt hard, odd given it was soaking in the soup. Flavor was decent.

Ordered the Chirashi entre and aside from the pieces of tuna and salmon, all other pieces of fish felt "dry" and certainly not tasting or appearing very fresh, though didn't smell fishy.

Underwhelmed. If you like good sushi....this is not good sushi. The Thai cooked dishes may be better, but I wont be back to try them.

Nice and quiet place to eat. The service was really good and the food enjoyable.

I took my daughter and her 5 friends for dinner. Great value at a great price. And there was something for everyone on the menu. No one left disappointed.

Tasty food. Great service. Always happy to go there.

Empty upstairs, food was good but nothing special. Service was Ok. I would try it once ,not unhappy.

As a lot of other reviewers have said the service was pretty slow. I rarely comment on things like this but it was definitely noticeable. The food was good, price is good so we may go back despite that, just know going in it's likely to take a while to get drinks/food.

Great spot! Consistently great!

Great sushi! Easy to walk to from Dupont circle.

The food was very good to good. (Ok, the dumplings were really, really good). The atmosphere was very nice. My only issue was the service. It was not bad but there was only one server to handle the entire restaurant -two floors. She was a champ; she was also the bartender! But it was too much for one person. I would go again but not in my must do again list.

Nice, quant place. Good place to get some fresh made sushi.

Nothing special, very ordinary food. We order lots of appetisers and all came at the same time with main dishes, not the way to serve food.

Birthday meal

Great, great drinks!

Food tasted great (Ordered a combination of appetizer, sushi, and entrée).
Cocktails were ok (bar had to remake a few bad ones but staff were very nice about it).
Food/Drink wait time was long (hour+ for sushi orders, 30+ for cocktails and non-tap beer orders).
Party size was 10 for a Saturday evening reservation.

Small place tucked away near Dupont Circle. 'Pan-Asian' menu - with choices from Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and Malaysian cuisines. This suited our family very well when we went to celebrate a young adult birthday.

6:30 pm reservation - no one else was dining on a Friday night. Other groups did come later.
Full sushi bar available. Fun cocktails.

Service was fine. Casual. Prices were modest.

Recommend: crispy peel beef, Singapore noodles (yum!) and the crab rangoon (large chunks of crab).

Food was just okay.
Waitress was slow
Nothing on the menu was appealing
Sushi was below average
I would not go back

Absolutely delicious meal and superb service.

Great food, great service, and a nice quaint and quiet atmosphere for dining and conversation.

Birthday din and it was amazing!

Two of us went for lunch. It was very quiet which was nice. The dumplings were excellent; not doughy at all, which is the problem of most of the ones I've tried in DC. The filling was good but they were pan fried and a little greasy. There were five in an order which made it difficult for two people to share. The eggplant in garlic sauce was delicious. I wouldn't change a thing. The lunch special noodles with chicken in curry peanut sauce was tasty though there was very little chicken. It contained two kinds of noodles -- lo mein and very thin (maybe rice?) noodles, which was a surprise bu it tasted good. The total check for two of us without tip was $29 which was very reasonable.

Overall, a nice meal. While I enjoyed the sushi, they didn't have regular salmon rolls or regular spicy tuna rolls.
The BBQ eel was quite delicious.
Sat by the window. They could clean up the cobwebs on the decorative items in the windows!

Went on busy night, only one server taking orders. Another server was behind counter and could not be bothered. Drinks took forever. Not worth waiting.

The food came out pretty fast is the only good thing I can say about this place. Service is horrible, no water refilled and nor come by one time to ask how things are. Do Nor Recommend!

Wonderful and soothing atmosphere for a weekday lunch. A nice getaway from the hussle and bussle. Enjoyed my experience.

Great meal as always!

My grandson and I enjoyed great sushi. The waitress was fabulous to us.

Excellente cuisine dans un décor intime.

We took a large group for a girls night. The service was excellent! A group of 10 is not easy and everything was timely and correct. Cocktails were also amazing

Niece just got out of hospital and wanted to go to Banana Leaves.

Food tasted great. Service was wonderful. The food came out really fast.

The only thing is ordering takes a long time (consistent with other reviews). Make sure you order everything in the first go because I waited 10 minutes to order a bowl of rice.

A group of us went to Banana Leaves after the Women's March. We had a reservation and were seated immediately. The restaurant was full, but there were just a few people waiting for tables- it was no busier than I imagine it would be on a regular Saturday night.

There appeared to be only two servers working- a very unfriendly man and a young woman who was very friendly but obviously unable to keep up with her full section. We were greeted and given menus, and water, and then got no service for at least 20 minutes. The male server refused to make any eye contact with us, but finally the woman came over- she apologized for the delay and was very nice, but told us that our drinks 'might take a while'. After we placed our order, we waited again for over 15 minutes, finally our food started to come and still no drinks- a man who appeared to be the manager started serving our food and when we mentioned the fact that we still hadn't gotten our drinks (at least 45 minutes to an hour after sitting down)- he acted as if we were being impatient.

No one ever apologized for the delay- with the exception of our server, who made it clear to us that she was overtaxed and unable to keep up. Lucky for her, five of the six of us work or have worked as servers, and we tipped her lavishly, simply because she was nice and we blamed the restaurant for being understaffed on what they had to know would be a busy weekend.

Overall, this was a cute place and the food and drinks were reasonably priced for a large city. The food was good, but the management is doing a disservice to the both the customers and staff by not having enough servers to handle the volume. I would be hesitant to recommend this place to others for that reason.

The food was tasty and better than expected for the price. However, the service was very slow and the restaurant seemed understaffed. Would return for the food but would think twice due to the speed of service.

Banana Leaves is a neighborhood favorite. Service is attentive and personal, menu is interesting, and locale is quiet. And the price is right! Thanks, BL!

Great food great price

I've been a loyal customer to Banana Leaves for many years and have found their pan-Asian menu to be high quality for a good price. I've only eaten at their restaurant a handful times over the years and this was by far the worst service I've ever received. We had a very large party of 20 people (although the restaurant was fairly empty) and it took forever to get drinks ordered and then food. When the food arrived, there were mistakes with the orders, my food was cold, another guests chicken was rare, etc. The waiter was not only not apologetic by downright rude (for example, I asked for another drink and he basically grunted in response). My guests were really nice, but it was pretty embarrassing. This is the second large party I've hosted at Banana Leaves and would not do it again based on this encounter. I was very disappointed and would recommend using them for delivery but avoiding the restaurant.