Banana Leaf - Indian Restaurant in Culver City

Thought I would give the less crowded/popular South Indian restaurant in this complex a try (the other is Mayura). What a horrendous mistake I made. The “cook” asked us if Venkkai meant eggplant…that is YOUR responsibility as the cook to know whats on your menu, not to ask the customer lmao. Can you imagine if you ordered kung pao chicken and the cook asked you what kung pao was?

The dishes themselves were extremely oily, the tindora fry had zero salt, and the dishes were all very undersized relative to the prices asked. And the quality was extremely bad. So bad we even found a piece of plastic in the Tomato Pappu dish. To top it off, we’d gotten a dosa batter to go (this was on day of Ugadi in mid March) and turns out the batter’s best buy date (as listed in photo attached) was expired by a month. The best takeaway I had from this restaurant was not my takeaway but the terribly upset stomach that lasted for days after.

I have never had South Indian food upset my stomach like this, I am South Indian. What a disgrace this establishment is to the entire region.

How can a restaurant be this incompetent and horrendous on all fronts and still keep its doors open? It boggles my mind.

An absolutely fantastic dinner in a really lovely place. Parking was very easy. Service was prompt. Really helpful staff.

Really good food, biryani top. Best in la so far. Server was very friendly and warm. Great experience. Good hygienic clean environment. Authentic. Thank you. Oh and Organic meats! Wow.

Worst exp with these items. May be more I am not sure. I ordered Chilli chicken and veg biryani. Chilli chicken is worst in taste and I can smell very bad and spoiled chicken. I ask for dum but they season the vegetables on top of the rice. Highly recommended not to go there again.

We totally surprised the transformation of the store from previous owner. The menu is very unique and tried their organic dum biryani.

The food was excellent and staff is very attentive with her service.

This is the 3rd management operated out of this location. Unfortunately it does not live up to the prior Indian food quality.
We ordered brown rice and they didn't have it. So they offered us white rice instead. But didn't offer to refund us the difference in cost.
Also, throughout our meal the server never came by our table to ask if we needed anything.
So no tip.

After hearing many good things about this business from friends and family, we decided to try their food. The chicken 65 was so good with authentic hyd real dum biryanis. The service was on point and very well deserved place. Now it is make sense why they are top 10 restaurants in culver city by infatuation

Excellent resturant, we tested several dishes and everything was perfect.
The welcome was great.

We went for my wife’s birthday and had one of the best experience’s of food and service that me and my partner have received in any Indian restaurant.
Staff were friendly and really helpful too. Must visit place for all indian food lovers and we’ll definitely be visiting again soon.

Amazing Authentic Indian restaurant. Excellent service from well trained Servers. Staff is Beautiful and Knowledgeable about the menu. Wonderful experience with ambience.

Fantastic service and the atmosphere is nice.
Food was incredible tasty!
Thanks

The food was absolutely phenomenal!
Everything was delicious & mouthwatering!
Service was friendly and helpful.
Thank You

Food tastes so authentic and flavourful. Service was great too. One of the finest Indian food in this area.

Lovely restaurant.
Awesome food. Almost all Indian food available. Chicken 65 and chicken tikka Masala was amazing.

The food was really really bad. It didn't taste good at all. Worst Indian food in LA by far.

Excellent quality of food. Presentation was awesome. My wife and I had an exceptional night out here.

Great place to get biryani. Prefer the takeout to dine in. Good vegetarian and non-vegetarian options.

1 of my favorite restaurant in this area. Each time we visit, we will order a different kind of food and it always satisfied our craving.
Happy meal

The food is great! Very tasty biryani. Minus one star for cleanliness. I hope the kitchen is cleaner! Minus two more stars for service. It is not possible that the menu would have some prices, but in fact others. I felt cheated.

We placed a catering order for 50 people with Banana Leaf and were left very disappointed with the quality and quantity of the food delivered. For some background, we tried the food we planned to order at their restaurant - chicken biryani, samosa and naan - and they all tested good - especially the biryani. Hence, we placed the party order.

Positives
- they delivered the food on time to the party location at no extra charge
- the samosas were good and all guests liked it

Negatives
- the chicken biryani was a huge disappointment. It lacked flavor and there was hardly any chicken in it which left many guests eating plain rice which was not flavorful either.we also ordered some veg biryani and it too had no flavor nor vegetables in it.similarly, we were told our order would suffice for 50 people but it was definitely not enough
- the butter naan could have been softer. It was quite hard and so the guests did not opt for it.
- the food was luke warm on arrival and went cold within 30 min.

I recently attended another party where they had ordered chicken biryani from another restaurant and for the same tray size and similar price, the quality and quantity of food were way better.