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This past weekend, Bert and I went to Prom! Yes, you heard that right! The Prom! Well, since we work at a local high school, it's part of the "end of the year" type activities . Plus we've been doing this for nearly 10 years as an excuse to dress up and go out to dinner. Past dinners (a few prior to my foodblog which debuted in 2006) were at Kemo Sabe, Vagabond, Cafe Japengo, Napa Grill (now defunct), Kensington Grill and Lei Lounge.

We were joking about the administrators having to use a "breathalyzer" on us! Nowadays, the breathalyzer is a common place tool used for school functions to determine who's drunk! On another note, this was also Bert's first time going out to the "Prom" with me because in the past, it was just me and my colleagues and we never brought our significant others.

I wore a black dress with a sequinned neckline with blingy silvery strappy heels while Bert looked ultra cool and very Reservoir Dogs in his slim white shirt, black pinstripe pants and vintage skinny black tie (straight outta our high school dayz, I shit you not!)!!! Quick, cue the cool bass line which begins, "Little Green Bag" (the opening song of aforementioned movie)!

Most of the restaurants that had a nice view of SD Bay were booked up. I took it upon myself to check out other places where parking wouldn't be an issue or booking a large party. Since I'd been to this place recently, I took my chances and found that Banana Leaf was available for our large party (See original post here). Woo hoo! Plus free parking at the structure!

I didn' use my flash here - last time I went, I was sitting near those Moroccan'ish lamps near this really cool water feature.   A note on this type of Indian food (courtesy of wikipedia):

 "South Indian Cuisine is a term used to refer to the cuisines found in the four southern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu...The similarities in the four states' cuisines are the presence of rice as a staple food, the use of lentils and spices, use of dried red chillies and fresh green chillies, coconut and native fruits and vegetables like tamarind, plantain, snake gourd, garlic, ginger, etc."

There were eight of us there that night, which in my food blogger's mind meant, "Cool! More variety means more pix for the blog!"  Heh heh! Here's someone's cocktail which I don't remember the name of, but it had salt on the rims. It was something fruity.

Another drink...they all had these pseudo-Indianesque names. I just realized they don't have their drinks menu online so I couldn't even tell you what this was.

Bert's Indian beer - Kingfisher)...the same beer RPattz (that's Robert Pattinson for you non Robsessed people)  orders while in Ghandi Restaurant in his recent movie,  "Remember Me" (because I remember things like that!)! But of course, that's not why Bert ordered this beer since it's a pretty standard Indian brand offered at most Indian places. My mind is just swimming with RPattz related shit right now...

Here's that movie clip I was referring to! Check out their NY accents. The girl is played by Emily de Ravin (Claire from "Lost"; she's Australian!).

My vaguely nasty sounding drink, "Mango Pleasure". It was non-alcoholic and was basically mango juice garnished with a (nonripe) mango slice. They could have doctored this up with grenadine syrup, club soda or something else to make it less boring. I felt like I could have just bought a Kern's nectar from Ralph's for .89 , and poured it in a stemmed glass myself!

I don't remember who ordered what, but this was the Mogo - Which was wedges of Cassava with spicy garlic sauce and cilantro. Cassava is a root vegetable which has a starchy mouthfeel, and kind of looks like a potato but has a different taste. I actually liked this but thought there was too many different kinds of sauce colors going on.

One of my co-workers ordered this, the Idli. Because the description said "rice dumplings with tomato broth and chutneys" she thought it would kind of be like the Asian style of dumplings. This was more of a light rice cake patty. It reminded me of a Filipino Puto on steroids. And by puto, I mean "steamed white rice cake", not the Mexican word "puto" which is a "not so nice" word ('puto is short for prostitute or used in a pejorative way towards male gays).   I called these "Pinche Putos"! Ha ha! Ask your Mexican friends what that means!

I don't remember the name of this appetizer but the menu description (not online but only in-house) actually said, "Caution - this is hot" or something. This was basically Samosas with a sauce that was meant to be "spicy" but it really wasn't at all.

The samosas were filled with spiced potatoes...you can see the whole spices in there (cardamom):

Another co-worker ordered the Masala fries. Now, while these were pretty decent, it was kind of a let down because the only thing vaguely tasting like Masala was the very light, almost imperceptible dusting of masala powder on the fries themselves.I think it was on the menu to appease Americanized palates.

I ordered the Masala Uthappam- which is a rice-based flour pancake filled with onions, tomato, green onions and peppers which are cooked right into the batter. I'd never tried an Uthappam before and was curious to try it! The chutneys were pretty mild - the green one was mint with yogurt and the other one was more 'vegetably' (is that even a word?) in nature.

Bert ordered the Mysore Dosa (named after the Mysore region)- A dosa is a rice flour crepe filled with spicy potatoes, beets, onion chutney and spinach. The dosa itself looked pretty impressive because it was long. Those extraneous edges don't have filling though, so keep that in mind. This dosa was not as spicy as Masala Dosa TORC and I had last month!

I'm not sure what this was called - it was on the other end of the table, but it was a rice dish with shrimp in it and it was really good! There were also a lot of slivered peppers on there! Okay, I don't know if this is just me, but don't those spouted sauce containers kind of look like mini urinals? Sorry, but it looks like something you would pee in if you were in a hospital!

I couldn't find this on the online menu, but I found it on my camera - it's the Moongfali Tofu which has a peanut based sauce. That looked pretty tasty...

Someone else ordered the Goan Curry with Chicken (named after the Goan region). The sauce consisted of coconut, tamarind, cumin and red chilies...It wasn't as spicy as the next dish which was...

the Kerala Curry with Lamb (named after the Kerala region). The sauce for this included red chilies, ginger, coconut water and spices. I had a bit of my friend's sauce and it was pretty hot.

Those two who ordered the curries also ordered the fragrant basmati rice with black sesame seeds. There's that cool slanted bowl that I admired last time...

A few of us ordered Bread as well. The Breads were Chapati and Poori. The Chapati is a thin, whole wheat pancake cooked on a flat skillet while the Paratha was a puffed whole wheat bread that was deep fried. They don't serve naan here, so keep that in mind. The Chapati is a little thicker than naan and more "wheaty" in flavor. Unfortunately, it was kind of dry. I guess it would have tasted better if I had more "saucy" food rather than the uttapam and the dosa. The puffed bread was better. The poori wasn't crispy like a tortilla chip, but texturally, I found it more interesting. Plus, it was fried. So yeah, fried = yummy! Don't you love my co-worker's brillian aqua blue nail polish?

So, the downside to this South Indian feast was that the restaurant seemed short of staff. The waiters were super nice but the service was also super slow. Like two hours and a half slow. After our dinner, we all headed downtown to check out Prom...

Here's the view near Petco Park as we neared the hotel. The kids looked super nice in their suits/tuxes/dresses and there were no major incidents either! The ballroom where the kids were dancing was easily 30 degrees hotter than the hallways. It was crazy in there! We chatted with some of our students, a few of the faculty, made a quick appearance, took our photos and headed back home...