Banana Leaf & Naked Chocolate Cafe

So, on Sunday, Jason's last day of his last golden weekend during his surgery rotation, we decided to have a fun day in center city.
Seeing how the weather permitted it, mid 30s, we took a walking tour with our friend Sarah. Our first attempt was to go to a late lunch at Aqua on 7th and Chestnut. It's a recently new Malaysian and Thai fusion BYO whose chef was previously from Penang, NYC. Unfortunately, it was closed.
Seeing how we craved Malaysian, we decided to go to another fairly new place in Chinatown -- Banana Leaf on 10th and Arch. The food was delicious. As appetizers we had the Roti with chicken and potato gravy (on the side) and fried tofu with cucumber and peanut sauce. The hearty peanut sauce, which was generously piled on top of the tofu, had a noticeable crunch and a pleasant bit of spice.
As entree we had the pineapple fried rice, mango with shrimp, and fried spare ribs. I can't say much for the ribs but the mango/shrimp was my favorite so far.

We then happily walked over to 13th and Walnut to another place we hadn't been to: The Naked Chocolate Cafe.

The minute you step in you feel like a kid in Candy Land. There's an almost endless array of chocolates, cupcakes, brittle, cakes, sweets...you get the picture.
I had the Spicy Hot Chocolate and although it didn't have the same kick as MarieBelle's spicy hot chocolate it had the same velvety ganache like consistency that's to die for. A small is more than you can ask for. To accompany it, we shared a Strawberry-Vanilla cupcake. It was honestly the first time I've had frosting that actually tastes like strawberry.
To finish this very fun day we went to see Almodovar's latest, Volver. It had a surprising amount of humor intertwined into a slew of very serious subjects. Once again, Almodovar has produced a gem.