Chris, Bob and I went to Champa Gardens for lunch. Champa Gardens is a Laotian restaurant in our neighborhood. Though it's nearby, Bob and I never think of eating there unless we're taking a guest. For some reason, I always think of it as a summer place. Well, it's certainly summer. Our warm weather is back. Usually we have a day or two of high temperatures followed by cooler weather, but this time there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.
I associate Champa Gardens with hot weather because it's a small corner restaurant at the end of a non-commercial street. Its door is usually wide open and inside is a bar where Laotians hang out drinking beer. It has a friendly, local feel even though the spot has been 'discovered' so there are usually a lot of people there from all parts of Oakland. The summer feel is intensified by the hot food they serve, but this time I tried to avoid the spicier stuff. We shared shrimp and avocado rolls and I had a grilled salmon salad with a green sauce -- cilantro, probably. Bob had Pad Thai and Chris ordered Larb with Tofu.
It was fun to eat and talk at a leisurely pace. We started off with the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, circled around Greek philosophers and Aesop's Fables, took a dip into ancient Briton, hung out for quite a while in the early Christian/late Roman Empire and ended up at Gobekli Tepe.
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