Neighborhood Watch

The late-afternoon vanishing act on San Francisco Bay had already begun by the time Mac and I arrived at the Terrace Bar of the venerable Claremont Resort.

It was 5 o’clock on a Friday in August, and from our vantage point in the hills of north Oakland we could look west over the bay to the massive fog bank advancing across the water in our direction. In the distance, the Golden Gate Bridge had already disappeared in a cloud of gray vapor, and San Francisco was slowly fading from view. On our side of the bay, the office towers of downtown Oakland and the giant cargo cranes of its busy port were still visible. And the Claremont itself--a whitewashed confection of towers and gables set amid 22 acres of tennis courts, pools and manicured gardens--continued to bask in the sun.

I’d come to the Claremont with my companion Mac for a weekend of urban exploration. The destination had baffled several friends--”Why Oakland?” one had asked bluntly--and, in truth, I could understand the question. Like just about every other American city these days, Oakland grapples with economic and crime problems in some neighborhoods, by and large in the western end of town and in the flatlands east of downtown and south of Interstate 580.

But Oakland has its own unique charms: vibrant and safe neighborhoods where walking is a pleasure, wonderful spots to eat and play, great architecture and the feel of a real city with deep roots. Intending to use the 279-room Claremont as an Oakland base of operations, we opted for a package that included a room facing the hills behind the hotel, with valet parking, which we were going to need given the busy schedule we’d planned.

Our room in the renovated 1915 hotel wasn’t grand, but it was comfortable. Framed botanical prints hung on butter-yellow walls, and the light green color of the carpet and the two overstuffed chairs gave the room a garden feel.

Hungry for dinner after fog-watching and drinks at the Terrace Bar, Mac and I drove 15 minutes to Chinatown. The fifth-largest Chinese enclave in the United States, Oakland’s Chinatown is a working neighborhood with virtually no souvenir shops. On the recommendation of a local friend, who told us that Chez Panisse workers stop by for cheap eats on their nights off, we ate at Vi’s Vietnamese Restaurant. The busy 14-table eatery specializes in noodle soups, and while we didn’t spot Chez Panisse owner Alice Waters, the food was worth the trip. Cold, clean-tasting Hue beer, for example, went beautifully with a rich soup of vermicelli and braised duck spiced with star anise.

After dinner, we drove uptown five minutes for an 8 o’clock date with Bogart and Bacall at Oakland’s Art Deco “Cathedral of the Motion Picture,” the Paramount Theatre. The 2,992-seat movie palace and live concert hall was nearly sold out, and the predominantly young, hip crowd seemed primed for “The Big Sleep.”

The next morning, under an overcast sky, I left Mac at the Claremont and returned on my own to the Paramount. The theater was the designated rendezvous for a guided walking tour through the uptown, Art Deco district, one of the many walks offered free from May through October by the Oakland Tours Program.

For two hours, 20 of us tagged along with our guide, Don Tyler, a local high school teacher and staunch Oaklander who repeatedly referred to San Francisco as “that West Bay city”--much to the amusement of the mostly East Bay group. Tyler talked about uptown’s heyday as a shopping and entertainment district from the late ‘20s until the onset of suburban flight in the ‘50s, and we stopped perhaps a dozen times to study highly stylized buildings from the early years. Among them was the sleek Paramount (1931), a National Historic Landmark saved from near death after it closed in the ‘60s, as well as the Fox Oakland Theatre, a 1928 Arabian Nights fantasy that, sadly, remains vacant.

With the skies clearing toward the end of the tour, a picnic seemed in order. After buying edibles at Ultra Lucca deli on Piedmont Avenue, I picked up Mac and headed to Joaquin Miller Park. Located off California 13 about 10 minutes from the Claremont, the park’s 500 hilltop acres of redwood, oak and pine forest are laced with hiking and horse trails that afford great views of the entire bay area. In a sunny meadow filled with hovering dragonflies and the slightly sharp aroma of warm pine needles, we ate lunch entirely by ourselves before taking a pleasant walk.

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Back down the hill, in the pedestrian-friendly Rockridge neighborhood, we spent the rest of the afternoon poking into shops along College Avenue, which appears to have at least one lively outdoor cafe in every block. We also checked out places for dinner, eventually choosing Garibaldi’s on College. The new Oakland outpost of a popular San Francisco restaurant, Garibaldi’s had debuted just the night before in a beautifully renovated brick-front building with high ceilings.

Mac and I shared a small platter of three antipasti--sliced orange-red tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and basil, roasted baby beets and cipollino onions dressed in balsamic vinaigrette, and a salad of fava beans, fennel, parsley and Sicilian Sardo cheese. My main course--a whole red snapper roasted in the oven with fennel and yellow Finn potatoes--was done to a turn, but halfway through I became more interested in Mac’s paella, with its prawns, mussels, chicken and sausage artfully arranged on a bed of saffron rice the color of a sunset.

We finished off Saturday night listening to Brazilian singer Flora Purim and percussionist Airto Moreira at Yoshi’s, one of the West Coast’s premier jazz clubs.

Although Mac and I were moving slow on Sunday morning, we did make it to Rick & Ann’s Restaurant--officially in Berkeley, just across the street from the Claremont--in time for 9 a.m. breakfast with a friend and his two kids. The food was good. I especially liked the French toast of challah dipped in orange-cardamom batter.

For a final dip into old Oakland, we accompanied Dan and the kids on a quick olive-oil run to Ratto’s (G. B. Ratto & Co. International Grocers), an Italian deli housed in a Victorian building in the oldest part of downtown. We eyed the deli counter with its 14 kinds of olives and wandered among burlap bags and wooden bins filled with dried beans and spices, much the same as Oaklanders probably did 100 years ago, when Ratto’s opened.

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Budget for Two

Air fare, LA-Oakland: $176.00

The Claremont, two nights: $373.42

Drinks, The Claremont: 12.00

Dinner, Vi’s Restaurant: 18.63

Movie at the Paramount: 10.00

Breakfast, Bread Garden, Peet’s: 8.60

Picnic lunch, Ultra Lucca: 12.98

Dinner, Garibaldi’s on College: 61.00

Yoshi’s (cover and two beers): 46.00

Breakfast, Rick & Ann’s: 17.49

FINAL TAB: $736.12

The Claremont, Ashby and Domingo Avenues, Oakland, CA 94623-0363; telephone (800) 551-7266.

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