Morning News with More Reasons to Love/Hate Starr

Don’t ever feel bad for Stephen Starr, he has two of the highest-grossing independent restaurants in America: Buddakan and Morimoto (the New York branches, of course) at numbers 12 and 84 respectively. Buddakan pulled in $20 million in ’07 while Morimoto trailed at $11.7 mil. Think about that the next time you’re sucking down an overpriced SRO cocktail. No Philly restaurants on the list at all. [Restaurants & Institutions Mag]

The Delightful Dan Gross notes that Obama has not yet tried a cheesesteak. We think this is because he’s taking our advice and believing in the Audacity of Roast Pork. [PhillyGossip]

Why aren’t food writers dealing with rising food prices? Are we in denial? Do we not care? At Foobooz, we talk about them all the time and even provide some handy guides for dealing with the problem without having to revert to cooking. [Slate]