The signature red stool logo signals your arrival at Rice Paper Scissors, a Vietnamese concept from Valerie Luu and Katie Kwan that started as a San Francisco pop-up and now serves lunch inside Brick & Mortar Music Hall. The Mission District bar and live music venue features big booths, a tiled, wood-framed bar, and a food ordering window in back. Colorful, signature low-slung Vietnam style stools and tables reside out front, along Mission Street.

Rice Paper Scissors specializes in pho, banh mi, seasonal rice bowls and some interesting non-alcoholic beverages. Yes, they’ve got Vietnamese iced coffee, fresh-cracked coconuts, house-fermented ginger beer and kombucha. My personal recommendation: Suan Mei Tang ($2). The smoked plum tea, served on the rocks, has a heritage that dates back more than a millennium to China. The tart purple beverage takes the best attributes of the smoky purple plums, sugar, and hawthorn, a plant in the rose family that yields fruit that has heart-healing powers. To my knowledge, smoked plum tea doesn’t actually contain any tea leaves, so it’s technically a tisane. Despite an optical illusion that makes it look like a man was bathing in my glass, suan mei tang doesn’t actually make for a good swimming pool, but it is delicious.