You Should Go For Dinner and a Movie in San Francisco

BY DAVID COPPIN LANEGAN

I clung to the back of a moped, my brother driving. It was about a year ago, and we twisted through the wind in Golden Gate Park, in search of Cassava and a movie. You would be lucky to eat at such an outstanding restaurant before catching a flick in San Francisco, not that there are any making headlines lately.

Opened in 2012 by spouses Kristoffer Toliao and Yuka Ioroi as an eight-seat cafe and fine dining pop-up, Cassava now boasts triple the seating at their new place in North Beach. Offering lunch and dinner service, and opening a separate wine bar at their original Balboa Street location, the restaurant comes with high praise from Eater and the James Beard foundation for their cuisine and “equitable business practices.”

This summer evening, we welcomed a friend who met us and sat, already flipping through the three course prix fixe (fixed price) menu. We gave our orders quickly. My first course of buttermilk fried chicken came steaming. The white meat was sweet and moist, and tore from the bone with relative ease. The darker swathes were richer, and a little bloodier, providing context and highlight to the sugar of the rest of the bird. 

Eating octopus is a wonderful sensation, for the first time or for the hundredth. (Paolo Bicchieri)

The second course was octopus served in corn sauce. The tentacles were tough and piercing the ochre skin and suckers made my teeth hurt, so when I felt the pale inner muscle melt a bit in the corners of my mouth it’s buttery thickness was a wonderful reward as it blended with the salty savor of that same ochre skin. The corn sauce was hot and syrupy and a chunky departure in texture from the octopus.

By this time I had received my accompanying drink, and my brother was checking his watch. We had a movie to make in half an hour and hadn’t timed ourselves well. I traded him my NA whiskey for his NA hot toddy (the whiskey was too bitter for me).

Our third course came, a shared plate of striped bass and strawberries. We ate as quick as we ordered. The bass was heavy, with a deep musk that settled in my nose and throat. The earthy flesh was perfectly accompanied by the sweet springtime strawberries, whose juice wetted the fish to a perfect moisture. Cassava was the perfect pre-movie feast.

We paid, bid our friend goodbye, and rushed to the theater. This was before Cassava’s move out of the Outer Richmond, so we went right across the street to the Balboa Theater. If you wanted to create a similar night for yourself in North Beach you could try Landmark’s Opera Plaza Cinema, or Marina Theater.

Full of good food, we sat down to see Thor: Love and Thunder, a truly horrible cash grab that recaptures none of the off the wall-ness of Taika Waiti’s first turn at the Thor character. That’s not to say I wasn’t laughing, because I was. It was hard not to, it was so bad. Now I might go see Oppenheimer or Barbie (not on the same night though). Really though, with a small theater like the Balboa or any that I mentioned, it doesn’t matter what you see. If you have a belly full of food and it’s getting to be evening time and you’re with someone good, it’ll be as perfect as that first bite of fried chicken.

Broke-Ass Stuart writers David Coppin-Lanegan and Paolo Bicchieri don’t play around on a dinner-movie-combo. (Paolo Bicchieri)

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