New Vietnamese sitdown restaurant on spot of Vi's on Webster, Oak Ctown
Something has opened up on the former site of Vi's, where I used to eat when in Oakland Chinatown. I asked and the owners are different. Any reports?
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I really think Rang Dong has improved vastly over the last 16 months of its opening in the old Vi's spot. Many Yelp posters seem to have had bad initial impressions. Tonight I had the most elegant and "traditional" dishes offered from the raw beef carpaccio to the Chicken-Fish stock noodle soup to the excellent salt and pepper calamari (soft and gently jalapeno flavored) and was greatly impressed with the food quality and niceness of the owners and staff. Believe me this is the place to go NEXT for high quality Vietnamese in Oakland.
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The place that *first* replaced Vi's, Pho Tu Do, was actually quite good. The place that replaced Pho Tu Do, Rang Dong, is.. very average. There was nothing I disliked about the pho I had, but nothing to bring me back there.
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Unfortunately, the place in Vi's old spot is only half-as-good. I had a half-as-good bowl of bun (vermacelli noodles) with grilled shrimp.
Recently I've been going to Ao Sen on International (14th) and 2nd. The imperial rolls are also fantastic. And they have the broken rice plates with meat and a fried egg that I've heard good things about. But Ao Sen is not in downtown Oakland so not easy to get to for lunch.
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