When Mother is a good cook, too often she’s also a dainty diner. Her standard of a good outie consists of a spotless floor, a high ceiling, white table cloth, classy customers, and fine china. So when it comes to taking Mother out for dinner, I have to be extra careful. French is always a safe choice. A French restaurant in the City of Trees is even better, as the rows of Eucalyptus loftily overlooked us driving through, bringing her back to memories of Saigon’s Duy Tan Street. The good mood was set. We arrived at La Boheme in the midst of a sun-bathed afternoon Farmers’ Market, white tents made the variegated crowd all the more picturesque. A step into the open-doored restaurant and the ambience transformed into cool air, quietude, and refined elegance. Seeing that it was past noon, we skipped the appetizers. The benefit of having company is the ease of trying out different categories in a menu: from land to sea to bakery, from duck confit stew to pan-roasted salmon to sandwich la Bohème. Want a late-19th-century Parisian afternoon? Go to La Boheme