This philosophic message/challenge adorning/"besmirching" Caffe Trieste's bathroom wall in North Beach last November comes to us from Seven Morris via the "sfist" and "found" tags. Sometimes a blank wall is miles more eloquent than anything that might besmirch it. Well, the wall is no longer blank though, is it? Oh, you clever, bathroom philosopher/ tagger, you. Send your Bay Area finds to found [at] sfist [dot] com or tag them "sfist" and "found" on Flickr!......

At the behest of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a piazza that will take up a block of Vallejo street is in the plans for 2007. The piazza will be located on Vallejo Street between Columbus and Grant, by the St. Francis of Assisi. If we can remember our North Beach geography through our fuzzy, alcohol drenched memories of North Beach, that's right by Busters (home of yummy Cheese Steaks) and Caffe Trieste. The piazza will include benches, trees and a "starving poets podium" for, well, starving poets. If we can remember our geography through our fuzzy, alcohol drenched memories, isn't there something like that in London? Says Tony Gartner, the president of the North Beach Merchants Association a nice restful place for "people to come and rest their souls." ...

So, there's a new Caffe Trieste location, right smack dab on Market Street (1667 Market, at Gough). This represents the company's fourth location, but its second here in the city . . . the other one being the original North Beach location. Which we dig quite a bit. So how does the new location compare to the old? Let's break it down....

Boy--we sure love completely subjective awards, and we're super thankful for a chance to give out a few of our own. People who've been reading our "Trimethyldioxypurist" missives will not be especially surprised by the winners. For those who are strangers to our periodic ramblings about coffee and cafes around the City by the Bay, here are our favorites among the many, many cool, delicious, and often unique coffee choices at which we overcaffeinated......

San Francisco's favorite but least read Q&A columnist, the Essefficist, answers a question about what you can order online if you're really missing San Francisco....

Last week, we talked about "ordering the right thing" -- recognizing the specialties of the house and what would be appropriate to drink there. Similarly, there are coffee-related ventures where the coffee quality doesn't matter. Not as much, at least, so long as it's hot and plentiful and the server is quick on the draw with that carafe. I speak, of course, of the "coffee shop." Or diner, if you prefer. Does anyone agree......

When reviewing a cafe or coffee shop, the Trimethyldioxypurist's typical modus operandi is to order a straight-up cup of good ol' American drip, nothing fancy -- a good benchmark to measure the general quality of a shop with its peers. However, when a cafe's claim to fame is that it introduced the West Coast to espresso, it's an appropriate time to stray from the formula. Caffe Trieste is in the heart of North Beach......