Kobayashi May Not Defend His Hot-Dog Title; Oyster Bar Has Best Year EverKobayashi is suffering from arthritis in his jaw and may not be able to compete in the Hot Dog Battle of the Century on the Fourth of July. [Gothamist] Related: New York Hot-Dog Eaters Take It to the Next Level Chefs debate what Paris Hilton’s first post-release meal should be: Amalia’s Ivy Stark says salmon, but Wolfgang Puck says pasta. [E!] Grand Central Oyster Bar had the best year in its history, raking in $14.2 million. A post-fire renovation in 1997 helped a lot. [NYP]
Back of the House
Foodies Flock to Networking Site; No Word If Any Have DatesFood Candy is as simple as a baked potato: It’s the Foodie Friendster (or, as you cutting-edge types would probably prefer, MySpace). The strange thing about the site is how happy, normal, and attractive the people look. Can these really be the same hard-core geeks that we’ve eaten with? Or is this the food version of JDate, which for the longest time showed you pictures of one Sarah Silverman after another, only to deliver Golda Meirs? We appreciate how the site brings together established bloggers like Daisy Martinez with obscure but worthy writers we didn’t know about, like the farm-loving Pease Porridge and the admirably focused Burrito Blog. (Restaurant Girl and Famous Fat Dave had already made fans of us.) We just hope this social phenomenon reflects the foodie community’s increasing obsessiveness, not some attempt at reintegrating with normal human society.
