Attention waffle and pancake houses: heavy competition has arrived. Souplantation is getting into the morning mix. All 10 San Diego locations now serve up a Sunday brunch buffet featuring breakfast favorites alongside an extensive salad bar. Frittatas, Belgian waffles, French toast and potatoes O’Brien — a rather international range of offerings, isn’t it? — along with country style biscuits and gravy, oatmeal and even scrambled eggs over linguini are featured on this “all-you-care-to-eat” buffet. The “Sunday Morning Menu,” as it is called, is priced at $7.29 for adults and children and is served between 9 a.m. and noon.

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For all you “Amateur Cooking Enthusiasts” (their line, not mine) out there, check out Infusion Culinary, a new local cooking school. Until recently cooking schools and classes were short and designed for the home/hobbyist or prolonged and aimed at cooking professional. Instead, Culinary Infusion offers five- and 12-week programs taught in a professional kitchen by two professional chef instructors. The classes are limited to 15 students and offer personalized hands-on instruction. Founded last year by Joey Nerenberg, who studied at the Culinary Institute of the Pacific in Hawaii and is a former instructor at The Art Institute of California-San Diego, Infusion Culinary will hold classes at Sur la Table in Carlsbad and in leased kitchen space at the Art Institute of California-San Diego campus in Mission Valley. For more information, visit infusion culinary.com.

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Sam the Cooking Guy is going global. Fans and friends of Sam Zien, aka “The Cooking Guy,” will be happy to hear that recently Zien, star and creator of the “Sam the Cooking Guy” show, recently inked a deal with Nokia, the largest cell phone maker in the world, allowing Nokia to preload two-minute Cooking Guy segments onto new phones around the world. Segments taken from Zien’s shows are already appearing on phones in places like Chile and Peru and will soon be coming to a two-inch screen near you.
Zien also signed a deal with John Wiley & Sons to publish his first cookbook titled, what else? “Sam the Cooking Guy.” Not too bad for a guy who is the first to admit he’s not a chef.

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Things are a bit more hip in the Gaslamp this month. Red Pearl Kitchen opened early this month at 440 J St. (between Fourth and Fifth avenues). This is the second Red Pearl location for owners Tim and Liza Goodell, (the first being in Huntington Beach). The couple also owns and operates two restaurants in Los Angeles: Meson G (in the former famous Citrus location) and Dakota, located at the recently renovated Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Goodell, named one of Food and Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs in 2000, calls Red Pearl a “hybrid.” The extensive menu offers both individual as well as family-style dining, from a wide selection of dim sum to salads to grilled meats and hot pot curries.

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Food Network personality Dave Liberman will be at Sur la Table in Carlsbad selling and signing his new cookbook “Young & Hungry” on Feb. 8 from 4 to 5 p.m. with a culinary class to follow at 6 p.m. Those interested in attending the book signing must call ahead — (760) 635-1316 — to reserve a book or space in the class ($75).

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Dawn Edwards has left her job as chef and culinary marketing coordinator for The French Gourmet to join KPBS as special events coordinator. She still has her spoon in the industry: among the upcoming events she’ll work is a cooking class with a PBS celebrity chef.

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Blue Coral Seafood and Wine, a new concept of Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse, has signed a 10-year, $1.76 million lease for 6,400 square feet of retail space in restaurant row at the Aventine. The spot formerly housed Sophia’s Italian Table. Brokers on the UTC project were Burnham Real Estate’s Bill Shrader and Corinna Gattasso.

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Congratulations to Jesse Paul, executive chef of Star of the Sea restaurant, for his induction into the San Diego Bailliage of the Chaine des Rotisseurs, an international society devoted to promoting fine dining and preserving the camaraderie and pleasure of the table.

Terryl Gavre believes the world would be a better place if everyone worked once as a foodserver. She is owner of Café 222, Downtown, and can be reached at (619) 233-4060, Ext. 316, or terryl@sandiegometro.com.