Banana Leaf South Indian Kitchen & Chocolat revisited

[Closed] 

This weekend I had the pleasure of having lunch with one of my friends, the Prof (the female one). I got to pick, so I chose Banana Leaf in Hillcrest. Plus, it was her treat and I had a coupon!

To refresh your memory, here are my previous posts:
Prom dinner with the co-workers this past June and my first visit with TORC after watching "The Runaways" back in March...

I love this wall - there are beautiful lanterns hanging parallel to a water feature. We sat at the very end of this fountain/wall.

Unfortunately I don't remember what this was. I originally wanted another appetizer but the waiter recommended this instead because it had "more pieces". So I took his rec and we ended up liking it. It's not on their website menu, and since I wasn't expecting to order this, I didn't take a photo of the inner menu. These were so delicious. They were like fried rolls (some sort of flatbread) sliced on the bias and filled with spiced vegetables. There was also yogurt sauce and little crunchy fried noodles on top. The sauce was a mixture of tamarind and mint.

This was the "poori" - two puffy whole wheat breads that are fried and served with a side of mint sauce. Damn, this was good! These were like two bread pillows!  When I tore open the bread, the hot air rushed out and it deflated somewhat. I could have eaten both of these! Fried bread = delicious!

I chose the Masala Dosa - the rice based crepe was filled with spicy mashed potatoes and served with a side of warm sambar chutney and a coconut dip (I didn't try it because the Prof said it was sweet). This dosa looked narrower than the one TORC and I had back in March (which had a different dip as well).

The Prof chose and eggplant dish which came with a side of rice. Again, this item is not listed on their online menu for some reason but it is on their menu in the restaurant. Duh. Wish I could remember the name of this. This dish, which not only had eggplant but carrots, tomatoes and onions, was really flavorful. I ended up taking the leftovers home...

Oh my (insert diety here) - take a look at that!

And just like TORC and I did back in March and me and Bert in September, we headed over to Chocolat for dessert. Not shown in this photo were scores of walkers for the 3-day Breast Cancer Walk. Lots of folks, men and women, wearing pink (some in rather outlandish costumes) and garnering honks of support from passerbys. They were everywhere that day!

Although the desserts looked tempting, we had our sights set on...

the gelato! I sampled the Spicy Chocolate, which was just Chocolate gelato infused with cayene pepper. You feel the kick but I didn't want to eat a whole cup of that.

The Prof sampled Pistachio, Grand Marnier, and Tiramisu before deciding on Grand Marnier.

The one I chose was the Chocolate Hazelnut (in photo above, it's the second to the bottom right corner while the corner is the Grand Marnier which is garnished with candied orange rinds).

I could taste the ground up hazelnuts in my gelato! It was so good! Makes me want to go back for more!

Totally unrelated to this post but here's the song running through my mind. Came across it on an old random CD mix I made awhile ago:

Thanksgiving is coming up. I have yet to even attempt a turkey, I'll leave that to my mom or brother. I sure as hell as not going to do it this year. Side dishes and dessert are my specialty. Gotta plan what I'll be making...