Dinner and a Movie: Takeout Ideas to Pair With Films

After a long day, who doesn’t love carryout on the couch with a good flick? Enjoy these mouthwatering and movie-loving recommendations from our culinary cinephile, Neil Pond.

1. Degthai (3025 Nolensville Pk.) started as a mobile Thai food truck and is now a family-friendly brick and mortar tucked along Nolensville Pike’s corridor of global-cuisine delights, with an additional option for orders and pickup at the Midtown Food Hall (614 18th Ave. N.). Jay’s Special is a delectable chicken stir-fry dish zinging with zesty Thai flavors and a combo of bitter, sweet, spicy, salty and umami notes, served over a bed of rice and topped with crisp Thai cucumber salad.

While you’re noshing, dim the lights and turn on the subtitles for Hunger, a 2023 Thai drama filmed in Bangkok and Phuket. It features a young female street-food noodle cook that joins a high-end establishment to work under the tutelage of a stern, infamous chef—kind of like an overseas cousin of The Bear. It’s a riveting, high-wire tale of woks and fire that will make your taste buds sit up and take notice. Netflix

2. With anything from Greko Greek Street Food (704 Main St.), you taste and feel how owners (and cousins) Bill and Tony Darsinos drew heavily from the flavors and traditions of their ancestral home in Athens. The Rice Bowl is a highly popular choice, and for good reason—it soars with flavor from peasant rice, wild greens, kalamata olives, feta cheese, tzatziki sauce, green onions, paprika, cucumbers and tomato. Add beef, chicken, lamb or pork to complete this most satisfying yum for your tum.

Go Greek with British actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in the 2020 comedic travel documentary The Trip to Greece, the latest of the pair’s “travelogue” movie excursions through Europe. They play “fake” versions of themselves, but the trip, the places and the food are very real—from fancy restaurants and spectacularly posh resorts all along the incredibly scenic way, including breakfast at the Imaret Hotel in Kavala, known for its Ottoman architecture; the Omilos Restaurant in Hydra, long renowned for its celeb clientele; and at a café on Damouchari beach, where Mamma Mia! was filmed. AMC+ and Apple TV

3. Corral your hunger for Tex-Mex with something from Superica in the Gulch (605 Overton St.), where Northern Mexican cuisine cozies up to the robust flavors of Texas ranch cooking. We love the Chicken Suizas Enchilada with spicy braised meat, sour cream and poblano sauce, Monterey Jack and queso fresco. And be sure to pick up a Lone Star–sized margarita, such as the Texas Star, shaken with Lunazul Reposado, St. Germain, Ruby Red grapefruit, hibiscus- infused agave syrup and lime.

And grab some extra napkins as you’ll need them for watching Coco, Pixar’s lovely and emotionally stirring 2017 animated tale of a young boy transported into Mexico’s Land of the Dead, where he seeks the help of his departed great-great-grandfather. Praised for its animation, music and an all-Latino principal vocal cast, Coco sweeps you away to a truly magical place way, way south of the border. Disney+

Neil Pond is a native Nashvillian, film critic and award-winning entertainment writer.