Did you know that Chinese New Year is celebrated for 15 days? The last day, March 4, 2007, is the Lantern Festival. So, we're not too late in getting this crucial holiday food news to you: Your celebratory moon cakes could be a danger to your health. ...

here's a little theater company doing some pretty big plays 9th Street in downtown Oakland, AND offering dinner discounts at neighboring restaurants to ticket holders....

We have a passion for Duroc pork, one of the new heritage breeds that are becoming part of the fine dining (food snob) rhetoric. You may not yet be familiar with the concept of "heritage" animals (a.k.a.: Why does my pork have a name?). Let us enlighten you: It's the same as "heirloom" but for meat. And as much as our plates and palates benefited in recent years from the arrival of beautifully marbled heirloom varieties of beefsteak tomatoes in a rainbow of colors, so we are now lucky to enjoy beautifully marbled heritage pork. ...

We were searching for the perfect romantic spot for Valentine's Day, a restaurant where we could eat extravagantly without paying through the snout, a dinner where we could indulge our twin loves -- for our sweetheart, and for pork. Oakland's B Restaurant (or just "B," apparently), promised to be such a place. Since the establishment's doors opened across its refurbished 120-year-old mosaic tile floor in 2005, reviewers have unanimously noted the New American-style restaurant's inventiveness, use of fresh local organic ingredients, occasional odd substitutions on plates -- made without comment, and UNANIMOUSLY praised one dish: The Duroc Pork Chop....