Truly Eye-Opening

Oh, those glass cases packed with drab croissants, bran muffins and packaged chocolate biscotti.

The breakfast eats at most San Francisco cafés are predictably lackluster--but not at the Mission's Little Spot Café.

Run for the past year by a young Japanese couple, the meeting place on the corner of South Van Ness and 23rd streets provides an uncommon latte-pairing option: house-made onigiri.

The stuffed rice balls, sold in specialty shops and gas stations alike in Japan, are an inexpensive convenience food appealing in their simplicity.

Every morning, the couple stuff onigiri with slugs of ume (pickled Japanese apricots), kombu (kelp) and salmon, swaddling each wad in nori.

The onigiri are ready by 8 a.m, and at that hour, each warm, doughnut-size parcel ($1.50) is so fresh it practically pulses in its cellophane wrapper.

Once unfurled and bitten into, the dried seaweed exterior cracks to reveal perfect grains of lightly salted rice and sweet, saucy kombu threads, or a nugget of pink salmon flakes.

If Little Spot's revelatory breakfast whets your Japanese food needs, note that reasonably priced nigiri, rolls, and clam-laced miso soup are offered Tuesday through Friday evenings.

The Little Spot Café, 1199 S. Van Ness Ave. (at 23rd St.); 415-550-1800