FOR DINNER: chicken-fried steak. Not at no truck stop restaurant, no. Right here at home. I just got off the phone with Neno and he told me how. There's a slab of expiration-date cube steak in the fridge, which I picked up half-off yesterday at my favorite little local fambly-run grocery store, the Ferns. All I have to do now is make it to dinnertime without going crazy and forgetting everything.

To occupy my mind and to fulfill my occupation, in the meantime, let me tell you about a chicken-fried chicken, and a steak. And a place that might be my new favorite place. The Alley, in Oakland on Grand Avenue. It's a bar. A piano bar! Used to be a speakeasy in the '20s, and hasn't lost a whole hell of a lot of charm along the way. Been in the same family since the '50s. Same guy, the legendary Rod Dibble, at the piano for 45 years running – according to our waitressperson.

They just recently took down the laundry, but inside it's set up to look like an alley still, with overhanging indoor rooftops, streetlight-like lights, and the booth backs are made of uneven wooden boards, reminiscent of picket fences.

The piano has three gooseneck microphones coming out of it to facilitate some serious late-night singing. Mr. Dibble goes to work at nine. Question: How did I not know about this place for 11 years?

??????????

For dinner, served Tuesday through Saturday, you have three choices: steak, fried chicken, and hamburgers. "All you need," Neno said when I told him about it on the phone just now.

I like salad too, and they have that, but it's a bowl of iceberg lettuce with half a cherry tomato on top. Not a whole cherry tomato. Not any slivered carrots or cucumbers or chopped white onions. No cabbage or radish. Just one half of one single cherry tomato. Which is beautiful for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on ... I could write a book, or a rock opera, or at least a poem, about an iceberg salad with a half of a cherry tomato on top, like a fool on a hill, or a wise man on a mountain, seeds showing.

There were a couple pieces of garlic bread too, and then the meats and potatoes came – steak and baked for me, and fried and fries for Bourbon LeMonde, a.k.a. E.B. Matt, one of my old-timerest eating buddies. Bourbon's the one turned me on to Ann's Café, to give you some idea.

Now he lives in San Diego, but he was here and we got to bum around together some, which made my month. Satchel Paige the Pitcher, and now this!

So I think what happens is people assume, if you're me, you know about a thing. Bob's Donuts. The Alley. So they don't bother to tell you because you must know. If you're me. But I don't! How many times do I have to tell you? I don't know shit! I don't know where to go. I just go places and eat things. And sometimes I write about it, and sometimes I forget everything.

And sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's sublime.

Like the Alley. Not the food. The food was good. The steak was rare and juicy, and the chicken was good and juicy too, and baked potatoes are baked potatoes. The fries were fresh cut. There were steamed vegetables. But I'm talking about the overall experience. Just being in this old funky, wooden place with the walls plastered with crusty brown business cards and newspaper clippings, ancient Formica tabletops, old-time music – Frank, Bing – on the stereo. Waiting for Rod to come in (9 p.m.) and get the real live old-timers going ...

Damn.

Damn. I can't wait to be back there. I can't wait for dinnertime, tonight, to make my chicken-fried steak, and though I've managed to kill several hours in the Alley here with you, it's still a little early. So:

Half a cherry tomato like a little toy tugboat, middle of Lake Erie. The ocean? No. Like a hat, no, a beach ball on the moon. Yes. A beach ball. Not on the moon, not Mars, a far further planet, sans steps, flag, wheels. Say: "cheese" ...

Picture: unthinkable atmosphere, inescapable landscape, swirling dust, dirt ... horizons more horrible than even Dante dared describe. Kid, have you lost a beach ball? There. It bounces and blows.

The Alley. 3325 Grand (at Elwood), Oakl. (510) 444-8505. Dinner: Tues.-Sat., 6-9:45 p.m. Full bar. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible.

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Dan Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).