DO YOU EVER get the feeling that your life is very quietly adding up to something?

Me neither. –In the window of the restaurant a party of five was steaming up the window of the restaurant, and behind them the little lights on a Christmas tree blinked red, green, blue, orange, white. –It was dark and cold and raining outside. It was the Tenderloin. Ellis Street, between Polk and Van Ness. I was standing in it, savoring the feeling that my life very quietly wasn't adding up to anything, hurrah, so much as it was spinning and spiraling through a sort of soupy solution, or broth, based on both everything in the world (chicken, shrimps, pork, flowers, beef, butter, cardboard ...) and, at the same time, absolutely nothing at all (...).

It was a fairly flavorful feeling to savor, as you might imagine – although the philosopher in me is quick to point out that it wouldn't have made me hungry if I weren't already hungry. Which is why I don't generally listen to the philosopher in me. I go into a place, and I sit down.

In this case, the name of the place was Chef VI. At least that's the way I read it, like royalty: Louis IV, Henry V, Chef VI. It didn't even occur to me until just now that it might have been V-I, as in Vi. It was, after all, a Vietnamese restaurant. Remember Vi's, in Oakland? So maybe Vi is a Vietnamese name, or short for Vietnamese. Or maybe it is Chef VI, as in King Chef the Sixth, or the sixth chef in a line of chefs, or a restaurant with six chefs, or –

But if I keep throwing things in the soup, we'll never eat.

"Would you like a recommendation?" the waiter said, handing me a menu.

No, I thought, I'd like a minute to look at the menu first.

I said, "Sure," looking over the menu quick. "What," I said, "do you recommend?"

Looking, looking, looking ...

"Chicken or beef?" he said.

I looked up from the menu, trying to read the spin on his curveball. Chicken or beef? What could this question mean? There were at least 50 things on the menu. Well, there was only one way to find out.

"Chicken?" I said, the dictionary definition of the word tentative.

"Number 18," he said without hesitating. "Chicken with ginger."

I looked down and Number 18 was not only chicken with ginger, it was a lunch special. Five ninety-five. It was 8:30 at night. When I looked back up, he was reaching for my menu, as if it was decided.

Two words: uh-uh. "Give me a minute," I said, and, left alone, finally, it took me less than that to decide on two things that weren't, of course, chicken or beef. They were pork, and they were shrimp. So there!

The shrimp was part of a hot and sour soup that could have just as easily and for the same price ($7.50) had catfish in it. Sprouts, celery, tomato, and those lovely flavor-sop mushmelons that have not yet been translated into English, I don't think – unless I just did the honor.

You know this is my favorite soup in the whole wide soupy world. Chef Six's version of it was damn good too, except that it was missing something: pineapple.

On the plus side, they bring it to your table in a big bowl with a fire under it, so it stays hot. I'm assuming you want your soup to stay hot. I did, except since I was eating by myself, and eating slowly, I couldn't stop worrying that the shrimps and celeries and flavor-sop mushmelons were going to be way, way overcooked by the time I got to them all.

The idea all along, and the reason why I'd ordered two things, was to bring half of it all home and have it for lunch today. That way I'd get two meals for the price of ... two meals, but I'd only have to go out in the rain once.

So as soon as the pork came, I sent the soup packing. Tell you what: it was good soup, but I didn't miss it one bit. The pork was even better. It was thin slices of meat marinated in some kind of lemongrassy sauce, perfectly grilled, and served over a big bed of shredded carrots and white radish with lots of cilantro, mint, green onions, and just general polly wolly doodle all the day ($6.95).

Chicken and ginger indeed!

But before I dog the waiter any harder, let me just say that the service was very good and friendly, and that the place was as warm and cheap-eatsfully inviting as it had seemed from outside. No music. TV with no sound. Big dragon behind my head. Plain brown walls with just one haunting picture you should probably go see for yourself.

Chef Vi. 807 Ellis (at Polk), S.F. (415) 567-2828. Mon.-Sat., 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Takeout available. Beer and wine. MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible.