Pho Anh Dao

We ventured outside for a mini-outing -- just a trip to 18th Street to Pho Anh Dao for lunch. It had actually stopped raining, but we could hardly believe our eyes. We were like dogs afraid to come out of their cage, sniffing warily at the edges of freedom, but ready to be beaten back at any time. OK, I exaggerate. But we were timid.

We often eat at Pho Anh Dao, especially when we can't think of anywhere else to go. It's not the best Vietnamese restaurant in town, but it's the closest to our house and it's cheap. Besides, I like the atmosphere.  The premises are large, dark, and rather shabby. There's the requisite fish tank in the back with cloudy water and semi-conscious marine creatures, things you don't want to examine too closely. There are the worn-out plastic tables with their jars of hot sauces, their metal containers jammed with paper napkins and their plastic chopsticks lined in a grimy row where the table meets the wall. There is the odd mixture of artwork on the wall and the occasional roach crawling down its wooden panels. The only new-looking objects in the place are the wide-screen TVs, angled down from the ceiling.  They play soundless sports footage, in this case basketball.

In the summer, Pho Anh Dao's cavernous gloom gives it a bit of coolness, at least compared to the harsh sun beating down on the sidewalk outside. In the winter, it's a warm hide-out, somewhere where human bears like us can definitely hibernate in comfort, huddled over our bowls of steaming pho. (I'm into animal metaphors to-night.)

Actually, we didn't eat pho this time. Instead, we devoured bowls of cold vermicelli topped with bits of meat, carrot and cucumber plus shredded lettuce, peanuts and bean sprouts. There was also the usual saucer of fish sauce to pour over the concoction, which we did.

The restaurant is usually fairly empty, but today it was filled with tables of animated young people. They were runners from Oakland's second annual marathon. They wore running gear and baseball hats and laughed and giggled and joked around, high-spirited over their bowls of pho. And they were all Asian. It was cheery to have them there with us in the restaurant, slurping up their noodles.