My wife and I have been making our way to different Thai restaurants in the Burgh and we were very impressed with The Smiling Banana Leaf. First of all it is on one of our favorite streets in the city because of Park Bruges. Smiling Banana gives us another reason to visit Bryant Street.
Parking was easy here. We found street parking just a street over. Walking in you can see that they have outside seating for the warmer months. That helps because the inside is small but it isn't as small as we were thinking. I did call ahead for reservations for two at 130pm on a Saturday afternoon. They sat us next to a window at a two seater. It is small in there but we didn't think it was too small even if it was full we wouldn't feel that cramped.
We were hungry so we ordered some Spring Rolls right away. We received rolls probably with in three or four minutes of when we placed the order. Carrie asked for them to whip up a special hot sauce paste for her and they did. The rolls were ok. We felt they tasted a little plain and we didn't taste hardly in shrimp in it. The nut sauce and the hot paste they made helped it a lot. It was a good roll but we have tasted better.
Next we ordered our main dish. Carrie got the Pad Kee Mao with TOFU and I ordered the Pad See Ew with chicken. Our food came out probably a little over ten minutes after we ordered. It looked, smelled, and tasted great. We both loved our meals. For the price we feel we received more food than the other Thai restaurants that we have been to and they gave us a lot of meat (Chicken and Tofu). We couldn't finish our food and it made great left overs later on for us. Spice wise I asked for a 6 and my wife asked for a 7. We both probably could have bumped it up a few ticks but still it was really good.
So this is now one of our favorite Thai restaurants in the Burgh. I think it's the best for the price and the amount of food you get but it is right up there in food quality as well. The Spring Rolls were a little disappointing but we will be back. This is a 4.5 stars for me.