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This fashionable restaurant, adjacent to SF's Yoshi's jazz club, would have been unthinkable a generation ago in this former neighborhood of decaying projects. The neighborhood still has some rougher edges for the ever-more-affluent city, but now there are private and municipal security forces regularly patrolling the streets. Come inside, and it's a dark, upscale restaurant and fashionable bar. While plush, it lacks its own distinction - making it feel more like the very unthematic TV show versions of upscale restaurants. They serve a sort of higher-end Americana food, with wine bottles on display, tables packed tightly together, and a rather neurotic wait staff. When it comes to the espresso, they gouge at $4 a pop from the two-group Rancilio Epoca back in the kitchen. And they use el cheapo Peerless beans. However, this is one of those shocking occasions where someone has made Peerless coffee taste of something other than stale, ashy, watery dreck. It's a credit to the barista training and to the bean rotation here. The cup has a simple, narrow warming flavor and comes with a frothy, pale crema. It has a thinner body and no back-end to the cup, making it a rather odd for espresso. But it's not offensive, which is the usual with Peerless beans.
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