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Dinner for Cigar Smokers: Rudyard Kipling suggested that “a woman is a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.” Sigmund Freud supposedly said that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

These days, cigars generally have been reduced to uninvited guests, banned on airplanes, buses and in most restaurants.

But it was cigar-smoker’s heaven Wednesday night at Prego Ristorante in Irvine, where management invited cigar aficionados to indulge in a “Cigar Dinner.” The night included a four-course dinner, fine Italian wines, after-dinner cognac and two premium cigar brands--Macanudo and Partagas.

In a bow to today’s realities, the meal was consumed indoors--but the featured attraction went up in smoke on the restaurant’s outdoor patio.