If you were wondering about the huge plastic giraffe that appeared recently in the yard of a little cottage near the Coffee Table, the mystery has been revealed. The giraffe is Zanzabelle, the star of a 1949 French stop-motion animated film, and she is the mascot of the new dessert cafe on Rowena. Inside Zanzabelle, antique cash registers and vintage store fixtures help display old-fashioned toys and quirky candies, like the potato-shaped Idaho Spud candy bar.
Zanzabelle offers around a dozen flavors of the excellent Dr. Bob's ice cream, including the hard-to-find cappucino crunch, as well as cupcakes, cookies and brownies. That's about it for now, but it's only been open a week. Sophie pronounced the chocolate cupcake "too chocolatey," as if there could really be such a thing, but perhaps the dense, dark cupcakes were more to an adult's taste. The front yard has cafe tables and mini-Adirondack chairs for outdoor snacking, and it's open from 11 to 7 Tues.-Sat. (noon on Sundays).
Zanzabelle
2912 Rowena
(323)663-9900
