• Takeru Kobayashi may have failed to oust champ Joey Chestnut during this summer’s hot-dog-eating contest, but he took back the hamburger title at yesterday’s Krystal Square Off. In eight minutes, he downed 93 Krystals to Chestnut’s 81. [Krystal Square Off]
• Last weekend’s Le Fooding event included some hits and misses. [Boozy NYC]
• At a food-security summit on Saturday, “Secretary Clinton spoke about the U.S. plan to commit at least $3.5 billion over the next three years to help boost food production worldwide.” [Examiner]
• Celebrity chefs confess their guilty pleasures: Wolfgang Puck loves Parisian macarons, Tom Colicchio has a taste for Wagyu beef, and Eric Ripert has “no guilt, I always indulge.” Only Batali cops to lime Doritos. [Slashfood]
• In a profile of five small businesses struggling in the recession, the owner of Alfanoose explains why he had to cancel his health insurance soon after an operation as a way to save money. [NYT]
• Leah Cohen, Cesare Casella, Ryan Skeen, Joey Campanaro, and others answer the question, “When was the last time you lost your shit on a staff member?” [Metromix NY]
• The director of London’s Le Caprice, which is planning a New York outlet, visited this weekend “to check out the best of what will be our rivals”: Monkey Bar, Vermilion, Minetta Tavern, Union Square Cafe, and the Pierre Hotel. [Daily Mail UK]
• A Coney Island food-stamp office is closing on October 16 to cut costs, and the next-closest location is in lower Manhattan. Officials counter that the needy can now register online. [NYDN]
• A new online ordering service called Gomobo targets those who want to “Skip the Line®” at fast-food restaurants for pick-up orders. [NYT]
• The owner of Central Market Grill and Central Market Chill in Grand Central claims an MTA executive who manages retail leasing called him an anti-Italian slur in 1996 and won’t renew his leases now because “she has a problem with my ethnicity.” [NYP]
• “Like bánh mì sandwiches and sriracha chile sauce, the young coconut and its juice is the latest formerly humble food to be discovered by New York City’s style set” (a.k.a. kids in Williamsburg). [Daily Intel]
• One of New York’s last seltzer deliverymen fell off his truck and will not work for several weeks, and customers are worried about not having enough seltzer. [NYT]
