So good, it had to be in the book

From Shooting Gallery:

Le Cheval was on Clay between Tenth and Eleventh, a brisk fifteen-minute walk from my apartment. During the weekdays the streets and sidewalks of downtown Oakland were clogged with hordes of government employees and businesspeople, who crowded into the coffeehouses, sandwich shops, and supply stores. After five o'clock these folks disappeared into the suburbs and Oakland's formerly grand downtown felt more like a ghost town. The Merchant's Association has been working hard to change that, so as I crossed Broadway's faded glory and hurried past Old Oakland's renovated Victorian town
houses, I was not surprised to hear the strains of a rock band at the Washington Arms pub competing with a jazz trio at Jesso's Seafood Cafe. San Francisco was chic and Berkeley was funky, but Oakland was down-t0-earth and friendly, and its fierce partisans, like me, were sure it was on the cusp of rebirth.

Le Cheval was mobbed, the cavernous space sufficient to accommodate only a fraction of those in search of good Vietnamese food served in a lively ambience, and as a regular I had known to reserve a table as soon as the restaurant opened this morning. A tiny woman in black jeans and a sparkly red top led me to a table in the center of the room where my mother waited, dressed in a navy blue linen suit and matching Hermes scarf.

Try it. You'll love it. I promise