I Pity the Poodle?

I came across this awesome picture of a dog dressed as Mr. T. It was on a wine gift bag at Cost Plus World Market.

Nothing to pity here, this us sheer awesome.

Le Cheval's Back

For those of you that haven't heard, the beloved Vietnamese restaurant, Le Cheval in Oakland, has moved back to it's old location.

In November 2010, I reported the Le Cheval was shuttering it's doors because of a tenant-landlord dispute. They relocated to the other corner of the block where they had originally planned to open a wine bar called LCX. The timing worked out, in that the wine bar concept was overhauled and they brought in most of the old Le Cheval menu though in a significantly smaller space.

Fast forward 16 months, Le Cheval secured a new lease at their old 1007 Clay Street location, where they had resided for two decades before getting evicted in 2010. New building owners, a slightly altered restaurant ownership structure, but the same great menu in the same great venue. The layout is largely the same, big round tables on the right side, and several diagonally situated square tables in the other two-thirds of the restaurant. They fixed it up a bit, but still feels like Le Cheval.

Claypot Rice Lunch Special at the new old Le Cheval.

As for the LCX restaurant space, they scrapped the wine bar concept and made it a noodle house with a simple menu consisting of classic Pho and other noodle soups.

Read more about Le Cheval's new lease on life in the East Bay Express.

Cupcake Crazy

Smores cupcake from More Cupcakes in Chicago

Maybe it's just me (Ray) that doesn't get this whole cupcake craze. Sure it's cute that you get creative with the flavors, design, and gobs of artery clogging frosting. But let's be honest, it's like 3 bites of cake for $3, $4, even $5.

And there are so many of them now coming out of the woodwork and invading strip malls, mall malls, trucks, and stands. And then there are TV shows dedicated to this cupcake phenomenon showing how bush league some of these cupcakeries are operated.

Call me old fashioned, but I want some real cake. Multiple layers of cake.

I don't want a tiramisu cupcake*—I want some real rum and espresso soaked lady fingers with marscapone tiramisu dusted with cocoa powder.


* I did have a CupKates' tiramisu cupcake from a work celebration earlier in the week. And damn it, it was delicious.