Been to this location quite a few times now. They still offered tasting menu (minimum order of two). The tasting menu is a fix price menu with a curated selection to give you an idea of Malaysian cuisine. We tried it once and thought it was a good idea if you have big appetite. Or you could still order if you have a big group. They don't require everyone in the group to order from the tasting menu. So we once ordered for two people for our group of eight. And then we ordered additional dishes along with that. Everyone in the group got to taste a bit of items included in the tasting menu. Unfortunately this time I noticed the tasting menu items haven't changed that much from last time. So we decided not to order from it.
For appetizers, we chose fried eggplant and nyonya calamari. I thought the eggplant was a clever idea. It's finger size eggplant with thin batter. Eggplant was actually crispy on the outside with a deep in sauce of tomate based sauce with a hint of spice. The nyonya calamari was good though I wasn't too sure which part of it supposed to be "nyonya". My understanding of nyonya food usually include some sort of spice(s). In this case, the calamari was lightly batter served with a dipping sauce of tartar sauce-like with a hint of some sort of lemony. I love calamari so I still enjoy it though I don't think the name suits well.
Our group of six that day ordered a carb loaded meal. 😅 From char kway teow (fried rice noodle), hokkian mee (another fried noodle with mixture of yellow and thin vermicelli) and Ipoh hor fun (wide noodle in gravy). Each of those had its own unique characteristic. I was glad to go with a big group and able to try out more items. If you like dry stir fry rice noodle, then char kway teow would suit you better. Ipoh hor fun was more on a wet side. But if you enjoy Thai noodle like rad na, then Ipoh hor fun here was closer to that. And lastly the hokkian mee was more a combination between char kway teow and Ipoh hor fun. The unique part was the combination of thick yellow (wheat) noodle and thin rice vermicelli. So it's probably a good balance if one isn't sure what to order. 😂
The last two dishes were sambal green beans and satay. The sambal in the sambal green beans was amazing. Got all the spice without being too spicy. So even you're not a chilihead, you most likely would still enjoy this dish. The satay we ordered were combination of beef and chicken. The beef satays were a bit on the chewy side. But I felt that they were more marinated compared to the chicken ones. But the chicken ones were tender. Good combination to order so one could compare and decide better which one to leave out next time. I thought the satay sauce was a bit too diluted. Could use a thicker sauce with more peanuty flavor.
Banana Leaf Kitsilano
3005 W Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6K 2G9
Phone: (604) 734-3005
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