Monday, August 17, 2009

Dinner and a show

I meet up with a couple of college friends - and their friends and family - for dinner and a show in San Francisco this weekend.

The first time I saw a real theater production - not including the Ronald McDonald theater program my mom used to take me to when I was little - I was 14 and a freshman in high school. My French teacher planned a trip to see "Les Miserables" in the city.


My friends and I all showed up in jeans, sneakers and hoodie sweatshirts to the consternation of the upperclassmen attending the show. They were all dressed in slacks and button-down shirts. Despite our fashion faux pas, it was the first of many theater experiences for me, and I was glad to expand them this weekend.
My friends and I saw "Beach Blanket Babylon," which somehow I had heard about in passing though I had never actually realized what it was about. In my head it was filed away as a musical set in the '60s with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, perhaps because of the 1960s film "Beach Blanket Bingo." Or perhaps because Funicello did make an appearance in "Babylon" during one of their anniversary shows.

The show is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, and creator and producer Steve Silver made a short video that is shown to audiences about the inception of the play. He says it is meant to be entertaining escapism to get people away from "all the bad things newspapers report on." As a journalist I cringed a little, but I get it. Even I was a little depressed after the series my paper ran on budget cuts last week.

"Babylon" has a loose storyline that can be easily adapted to fill in for any pop culture references, current events or popular songs - and it is full of crazy, oversized wigs. Snow White is searching for her prince and she searches for him through a montage of different skits that are prompted by some aspect of what she wants in a man. She says she might want a politician, and that kicks off a piece that includes characters dressed as Obama, Palin, McCain, Hilary and Bill Clinton. They even updated the show with a reference to Hilary's not-so-subtle snap at a press conference in Africa a couple weeks ago about how she is Secretary of State, not her husband.
My favorite scene in the movie is a parody of "One Day More" from "Les Miserables," in which the politicians again take the scene, and sing about the economy and the tanked housing market. It was great because I know the play "Les Mis" really well and their rendition was spot on - except that the lyrics were totally different.

For dinner we headed to a restaurant that my friend chose based on two criteria - it was close to the theater and could accomodate a large party. We ended up at Mangarosa, a restaurant that dubs itself a fusion of Italian and Brazilian cuisine. From my viewpoint, most of it was very Italian. Some of the diners skipped the show and met up at the restaurant, and as they were running a few minutes late we had plenty of time to peruse the menu. It include a healthy serving of salads and appetizers, and I opted for a plate of hand-battered artichoke hearts with aioli while others tried pastries stuffed with beef, cheese
and chicken, and a crab dip.

The main courses ranged from meaty dishes such as lamp chops, osso bucco and short ribs to pasta dishes such as raviolis stuffed with ricotta, parmesan and goat cheese or a risotto with shitake mushrooms and chicken in pesto sauce. It is the first time I've ever seen my favorite cheese, teleme cheese, on a restraurant menu so I give the chef chops for that. There were some vegetarian options, but some of the seafood options may be misleading to less knowledgeable diners. One person in the party considered the scallops with speck, treviso and calvados butter even though the only ingredient he knew was the main one. He said he figured speck was an herb or a vegetable of some sort since those would be the two most likely candidates. Turns out speck is actually a type of cured ham, almost like prosciutto. But no need to worry since the diner was not a vegetarian, and actually skipped the scallops in favor of lamp chops.
I ordered the shiitake mushroom and chicken pesto risotto as my entree and it was rich and creamy, as a risotto should be. Others at the table said they enjoyed their meals. I sampled the raviolis and they were tasty, though the sauce was a bit bland.

The main thing to recommend the restaurant is that they easily accomodated a party of 17 in a area set off from the main dining room. The waitress was patient as members of the party arrived. She was fairly prompt with filing the wine glasses, and the group was allowed to leisurely enjoy the food and company.

Photos by Melissa Flores

From top: A friend stands outside the Fugazi Theater with a bust of 'Beach Blanket Babylon' creator Steve Silver

Appetizer special, hand-battered artichoke hearts with aioli sauce from Mangarosa.

Warm spinach salad with goat cheese, pears and carmelized onions.
Focaccio bread.

Shiitake mushroom and chicken pesto risotto.

Tender soft beef short ribs in red bell pepper sauce.

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