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Maybe it was that season spoiler, but interest in Top Chef Masters seems to have pretty much fizzled out (well, ours certainly has, anyway). Anita Lo appeared on last night’s episode, and yet Eater seems to be the only major NYC food blog that bothered with a recap, and judging by how breezy it is, it’s pretty clear they fast-forwarded through the episode. Serious Eats’s experiment in live comment blogging (à la Gawker) garnered a lackluster fifteen comments. And the only sites that seemed to care about Anita Lo’s victory (yay!) were judge Gael Greene’s Bravo blog and the Rickshaw Dumpling blog, which finds Lo gabbing with her partner, Kenny Lao, about the dishes she prepared for Neil Patrick Harris. (That’s right, not even Doogie Howser/Barney could get us excited about this episode.) Safe to say the thrill is gone?

Oh, Canada! First poutine spreads like chicken gravy, and today there’s word that by Monday, Riese Organization, the city’s largest restaurant company, will replace its thirteen Dunkin' Donuts franchises with Tim Hortons — the coffee, doughnut, and baked-goods eatery started in 1964 by the onetime Toronto Maple Leafs player of the same name. (Starting at 6 a.m. on Monday, the Penn Station location will give out free coffee all day.) In Canada, Tim Hortons sells two billion cups of coffee a year; and it introduced the "Timbit," a bite-sized doughnut ball, over 40 years before Hardee’s inflicted the biscuit hole upon us. We gave Dennis Riese a ring to see why he ditched Dunkin' for a Canuck company, and to talk about the state of his empire in general.

Philippe’s PR has now issued a statement defending itself against one of the many claims in the lawsuit Mr. Chow has filed — that Chak Yam Chau changed his name to Philippe Chow in order to confuse and lure away Mr. Chow’s customers. Which is just a little bit self-defeating, since they don’t bother to defend themselves against all the other claims! But hey, it’s still early in the game and we’re sure the publicists and lawyers have a lot more to say about this. Here’s the statement.

Now, this has to be a first — a PR company e-mailing us a lawsuit? We’ve already documented the strange public-relations strategies that Philippe and Mr. Chow have employed in their longstanding feud, but now it has come to this: Mr. Chow is suing Philippe for “unfair and deceptive trade practices, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, conversion, trademark infringement, false advertising, and other violations of the Lanham Act and common law.” The suit charges that Philippe Chau has willfully caused brand confusion by changing his name to Chow, taking credit for dishes that Mr. Chow actually invented, using Internet ads and search tags to lead Mr. Chow’s would-be patrons to his restaurant, and passing himself off as Mr. Chow’s former executive chef when he was really just the lead expediter and “primarily a food chopper” who, though he contributed “nothing whatsoever” (emphasis theirs) to the Mr. Chow menu, ended up taking its dishes over to his own restaurant and passing them off as his own.

The Post has a great story for anyone who has ever been nixed by Wass Stevens, the infamous Marquee doorman. He’s accused of throwing the business end of a velvet rope at someone who was trying to argue his way into Avenue, allegedly cracking the dude’s head and sending him to the hospital. Wass was charged with assault and quickly released. Now, why do we see the makings of an excellent summer rom com in this? One that Wass would actually play himself in (if Bradley Cooper isn’t available), given that he has appeared in the Wrestler and in BlackBerry ads and whatnot. Here’s how it would go.

We may well be the only ones who care, but we do care about the fate of mysteriously shuttered Munchies and its potato-chip hot dog. A few weeks ago, a sign explained that “unforeseen maintenance” had caused a temporary closure — then the sign disappeared, causing us to assume the gig was up. But now this one has appeared. She’s not a goner yet, folks.