Hancock (2008)
Written by Vy Vincent Ngo & Vince Gilligan
Directed by Peter Berg
Starring (in this scene): Will Smith as Hancock, Jason Bateman as Ray, Charlize Theron as Mary
Chef’s Note: Where are they eating? It’s always a bit of a toss up as to whether a movie will choose an existing eatery, or just create one on a sound stage. This whole scene had the feel of a real place – something about the general ambience feels textured instead of produced. Still, almost nothing but close ups so a bit hard to get a visual read on the place as a whole.
Luckily it did not take too much digging to discover that it is the well-known, though now sadly closed, Los Angeles restaurant Café Pinot.
And because we now know that, we can take a better guess as to what they’re all eating, because we only get brief glimpses of the food as well. I think Ray has the braised lamb shank with polenta, Mary is having the Jidori chicken with the garlic fries and John is set up with beef tenderloin and pommes aligot.
Chef’s Note: Dodger Dog
But the core idea here remains the same. The Dodger Dog is the most iconic hot dog in baseball—which has helped make it the most popular, too, and it’s not close. Here are the numbers: Heading into this season, the Dodgers were projected to sell three million hot dogs this year. That represents an uptick over recent years, but not a dramatic one, after the team averaged 2.7 million dogs from 2015 to ’19. (Those are the last seasons with full league hot dog data available for comparisons—the various pandemic restrictions across baseball complicate dog-tracking for ’20 and ’21.) In other words, three million Dodger Dogs this year would be roughly in line with business as usual at Chavez Ravine. As for the team projected for second place in the hot-dog wars? The Yankees … at 1.2 million. That means no one else is expected to sell half as many hot dogs as the Dodgers.