LET'S SEE, where were we? Oh yeah, at Brainwash, watching the clothes spin and thinking about forgiveness. Jesus. Butter ... Well, they ruined some more of my laundry, the bastards. Could have been operator error, I suppose, but I swear I did what I always do. So that makes twice out of two tries over a 15-year span that Brainwash let me down. And roughly 778 times at various other laundromats where nothing bad ever happened.

Forgiveness?

Fuck that shit. Jesus can forgive them, if He wants to. I don't know about Him, but I'm not a laundromat reviewer anyway, so why the hell am I talking about laundry instead of steel drums? Every year I go check out Carnaval in the Mission, forgetting that it isn't just about Trinidad (damn diversity), and every year I manage to miss all the steel stuff. Maybe there isn't any. But I know there is because this year I asked a guy who'd been standing there a lot longer than me. "Any steel bands go by?" I said.

"Yeah. A couple," he said. "They were great." I must have looked somewhat crushed. "There'll be more," he assured me. Smiling. Stopping short of patting me on the head.

So I waited.

Not that I mind all the other colors, all the tits and ass, the stilts and funky dances, and even the low-rider bouncy muscle cars, which always steal the show. But it's the steel of the show I'm after, and after waiting and waiting and waiting, it's all kind of ... I don't know. Anyway, I'm probably not a parade reviewer anyway. Maybe next year I'll go to Trinidad.

Send money.

A fiddler friend in Berkeley found an old, rusty, beat-up steel drum on the curb over there, getting gived up upon and throwed out by someone with no patience or soul or sense of absurdity. My friend did the right thing. She took the drum home with her and called me.

"I'll be right there," I said.

Meanwhile, hunger happens. We went looking for a place Wayway told me about, a Caribbean restaurant on University at Shattuck, I thought he said. Which would have been perfect, both thematically and geographically, except that it wasn't there, or at any rate it wasn't visible to the naked eye. Or at any rate ours.

Wayway?

It was a beautiful evening. We just kept walking, up Shattuck past restaurants and restaurants. We were aiming vaguely for Cha Am, but when we got there there was an even-better-looking (to me) Thai and Lao place next door. Dara. They have a great sort of porchlike decklike patio gardeny eating area out front, up above the sidewalk, with some funky wooden picnic tables with roofs and weirdo cup holders. Maybe there were those old-time wooden ship steering wheels too, or maybe I dreamed that part.

I know I didn't dream the food, and I know it was excellent. And pretty cheap, most dishes ranging between 6 and 10 bucks. We got a salady thing with catfish, a panang curry with roasted duck, and a chili-peppery dish with shrimps and beans and stuff.

I think my favorite might have been the catfish salad. It had these crunchy noodle clumps that were unexpected but welcome. Plus the catfish was fried, which is of course how all catfishes should be – at least eventually. Lime juice. Other nice things.

You know how I feel about roasted ducks, speaking of animals in their natural habitats (catfishes, frying pans). This was a great dish, although it would have been even better with something else besides eggplant. And the beany, peppery shrimp one was also real good.

Great place, especially if it's warm enough to eat outside. Which it wasn't. As soon as the sun went down, I started dying of hypothermia. I had my bare feet inside my handbag under the table, and my hands in my footbag on top of the table ... Really though, thank you, Jesus, for hot tea, spicy food, interesting conversation, warm people, blowtorches, dog shit, the internal-combustion engine, leftovers ...

Toothpicks.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go hammer on an Invader.

Dara Thai/Lao Cuisine. 1549 Shattuck (at Cedar), Berk. (510) 841-2002. Mon.-Sat., 11:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m.; Sun., 11:30 a.m.-10:00 p.m. Takeout available. Beer and Wine. Discover, MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible.

Email Dan Leone

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).