Grub Street

Since dinner out can often top $100 for two people, it's not surprising that most customers demand restaurants take credit cards. Restaurants, of course, are obliging, but that means credit-card companies can charge ever-higher fees, for which restaurants must bear the burden. Now the National Restaurant Association is lobbying Congress to get those fees lowered, much the way debit-card processing fees have already been capped under the Dodd-Frank Act. They've posted this fee calculator for restaurant owners so they can figure out just how pricey all this is — even small restaurants are likely paying tens of thousands a year in fees alone — with the hope that they'll make more noise. But barring any immediate changes at the federal level, restaurant customers in 40 states may soon start seeing those processing fees passed on to them as a line item on their bill.

Last year it was reported that Food Network fixtures Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurentiis were developing a daytime talk show for CBS, tentatively called Giada and Bobby, which seems like it would have been a lot of fun. Today, however, the Post squashes so many dreams like overcooked gougères with news that the network has passed on the project. Eater National, however, contacted Flay, who says not to fear because "there are other networks interested in the project." A soupçon of Giada and Bobby exists online, and while the video ahead isn't the actual presentation reel, it does give some sense of how the show might eventually look: It's basically Bobby and Giada, hanging out in a well-appointed loft on a sunny day. Click through, then start a petition to make this thing happen.

Adam Platt filed a twofer this week. He tried the "umami-rich" macaroni and cheese and hamachi tacos at Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto's Tribeca Canvas, as well as the Filipino pork head at Pig & Khao, a newish addition to the city's burgeoning Asian Hipster cuisine featured in Platt's 2013 Where to Eat list. Where did the other critics dine? Read on to find out.

"Off the Menu" today confirms that Michael White's group has leased the bi-level space at 206 Spring Street, plus its basement kitchen, that was most recently home to the well-regarded Italian restaurant Fiamma. The information was reported first by the Post last November, and while no new information is yet available concerning the Altamarea Group's plans for the Soho space, the move is noteworthy because White was once the chef of Fiamma, then a B.R. Guest restaurant property, and left unceremoniously in 2006. [NYT, Earlier]