Sampler Platter: LudoBites debuts at Royal/T, Padma poses nude, the strongest beer in the world

Ludovic Lefebvre is the man of the hour as his latest pop-up restaurant debuts tonight in Culver City, plus other non-Ludo food news.

-- Kevin Eats previews LudoBites 3.0, which debuts tonight at Royal/T with a wine list curated by Domaine LA.
-- Teenage Gluster and his mom teach chef Ludo to make a mole.
-- A Cadbury descendant crusades against Kraft's potential takeover. Wall Street Journal
-- Street Gourmet LA tastes Samuel Adams' Utopias, the strongest beer in the world.
-- Thieves steal $100,000 of donated food, toys in Orange County. NBC Los Angeles
-- Louisiana restaurants sue vendors after point-of-sale hack. PC World
-- Pregnant "Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi poses nude for magazine. Hindustan Times
-- Potatomato pops into Mercantile.
-- China welcomes back Canadian bacon. AFP
-- J&D's, the folks who make bacon salt, bring you these new bacon products: BaconPOP popcorn, bacon ranch dressing and bacon-flavored envelopes.
-- Tacos El Fenix: The real Baja fish taco. Gourmet Pigs
-- Some Premium Edge cat foods recalled due to thiamine deficiency. L.A. Unleashed

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Chef Kris Morningstar, middle, chats with a customer at Mercantile in Hollywood. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times.

Sampler Platter: Baja Fresh to franchise Calbi BBQ truck, 1,500-calorie Craz-E Burger, world's largest cupcake

Angry dairy farmers dousing police officers in milk, a franchised nouveau food truck and fake restaurant receipts top today's food news roundup.

-- Baja Fresh has acquired the Calbi BBQ truck and will franchise the concept. Nation's Restaurant News
-- Fresh & Easy is expected to end the year with a loss. Fast Food Maven
-- 1,316-pound Guinness World Record cupcake is unveiled at a breast cancer benefit. Breitbart
-- Farmers spray police officers with milk -- from live cows! -- at a protest against falling milk prices in Brussels. New York Times
-- Need to generate a fake restaurant receipt for your expense report? Expense-a-Steak will do it for you. Wall Street Journal
-- Meet the 1,500-calorie Craz-E Burger: beef patty, bacon and cheese on a Krispy Kreme doughnut. New York Daily News
-- Although banning fast-food eateries probably won't reduce obesity rates, some people love the soda tax idea. Los Angeles Times
-- Can an anthropomorphized pickle with skinny legs, high-top sneakers and a baseball cap make frozen pickle-juice popsicles seem cool? Bob's Pickle Pops
-- Can a 20-minute Web-only "rock opera" featuring the exploits of fake rocker White Gold get people to drink milk? Los Angeles Times
-- Six tips to get you the most out of dineLA 's Restaurant Week. LAist
-- The Obamas spend their 17th wedding anniversary at Blue Duck Tavern. Positively Barack

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: A farmer sprays riot police with milk from a cow's udder during a demonstration in front of European Union headquarters in Brussels. Dairy farmers drove hundreds of tractors into the center of Belgium's capital on Monday in the hope of pushing farm ministers into backing more funds to help them survive the milk price crisis. Credit: Yves Logghe / Associated Press

FTC announces new guidelines, says bloggers must reveal payments for reviews

The Federal Trade Commission has made its first attempt to impose order on the largely unregulated world of blogging, announcing changes to its guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials. Beginning Dec. 1, bloggers will be required to disclose any "material connections" (i.e. payments or freebies) they receive from companies whose products they review. Revised for the first time since 1980, the new rules (view them here) carry fines up to $11,000 per violation.

What does that mean for food bloggers? Business as usual. Technically, you're supposed to disclose all comped meals. But if you don't, the FTC's not likely to do anything about it.

"My initial reaction to that scenario [comped meals] is that disclosure would be required," says Rich Cleland of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "Our primary concern relates to the fact that you received something of value and it's for the exchange of writing about the product."

But the FTC has a limited interest -- and ability -- in monitoring blog traffic. According to Cleland, the FTC is far more interested in pursuing advertisers, especially those who violate the rules after repeated warnings, than they are in dunning individual bloggers. Unless the FTC receives numerous complaints about a specific blog, it's unlikely to investigate. It's a matter of enforcement priorities.

"If we received complaints," Cleland says, "we'd look at how serious the representations are. Are there other possible violations? What kind of blog is it? We might be more concerned about a blogger who was writing a review of a medical device that’s used for a serious disease than we would be about someone who's writing a restaurant review."

Sampler Platter: bacon-flavored beer, keeping kosher in Kabul and chewy chicken feet

  Would you pay $63,500 for dinner? One woman just did. This and more in today's food news roundup.

-- Bacon-flavored beer. New York Times
-- Keeping kosher in Kabul: Afghanistan's last Jew. Los Angeles Times
-- Alabama woman wins dinner with Sarah Palin for $63,500 via EBay auction. New York Daily News
-- Chewy chicken feet may quash a China-America trade war. New York Times
-- A man accused of starting a restaurant fire with a flicked cigarette has been ordered to quit smoking by a judge. Maui News
-- Eating LA visits Cafe Flourish, a recently opened vegan restaurant in Miracle Mile.
-- TGI Friday's closes 10 West Coast restaurants. Dallas Morning News
-- José Antonio Ortega Bonet, founder of Sazón Goya Food Company, dies. Miami Herald
-- Ghirardelli Chocolate launches iPhone app. Reuters

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Chicken feet stick up from behind a stall glass panel at a market in Shanghai. Credit: Qilai Shen / EPA

Sampler Platter: stinky tofu, vegan desserts, congee & tensions in Mid-City West

Congee, vegan desserts, surreal McDonald's commercials and gay ice cream lead today's food news roundup.

-- Rancid soy bliss at Mama's in San Gabriel. Sinosoul
-- Who profits from inflated fears about food allergies? Slate
-- Hector Vazquez earns a YouTube following with his cooking show "Hood Chef." New York Daily News
-- Ben & Jerry’s celebrates gay marriage by renaming “Chubby Hubby” ice cream “Hubby Hubby” for September. You can still get Chubby Hubby at shops and stores around the country, but in Vermont you can get special Hubby Hubby sundaes.
-- Sugar Plum Vegan bakery from Sacramento comes to L.A. Quarrygirl
-- Tensions run high at Mid City West Land Use Committee meeting meeting re: four new restaurants: Allora, Eva, Lan, Dusty's. Blackburn + Sweetzer
-- Guest list for the annual White House Ramadan dinner. Los Angeles Times
-- If McDonald's hired Salvador Dali to oversee its advertising, it might look something like this surreal TV spot. YouTube
-- Store brands usually taste as good as national brands. Consumer Reports
-- Jook a.k.a. congee a.k.a. porridge: the next best thing to a hug from a Chinese mama. Rants and Craves

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Lai Wan-style congee at Silver & Gold Amazing in Monterey Park. Credit: Nancy Pastor / For The Times.

Sampler Platter: Chrissie Hynde protest scrapped, R.I.P. Sheila Lukins, flavors of Little Saigon and the long-gone Chili Bowl chain

Rock star activism, a tour of Westminster's Little Saigon, the death of Sheila Lukins and the story of the Chili Bowl chain lead today's food news roundup.

-- In the U.K., prison food beats hospital food. BBC
-- Lukins, who helped usher in the new American cooking of the 1980s with her Silver Palate food shop and line of books, died Sunday at age 66. New York Times
-- Food Marathon, the Gastronomer, LA & OC Foodie and a few pals run a food marathon: six restaurants spread out over five miles in the SGV.
-- Pretenders rocker Chrissie Hynde, who runs a vegetarian restaurant in her native Akron, Ohio, planned to protest outside a West Hollywood McDonald's today, but the event has been scrapped due to the wildfires. Contact Music
-- New York's storied Café des Artistes to close. New York Times
-- Indiana man claims he invented a microwavable plastic food container, sues two major food packagers. Chicago Tribune
-- Eat Real sustainable food festival draws thousands to Oakland. SF Gate
-- Remembering the long-gone chain of Chili Bowl restaurants, which opened in 1931 and were shaped like (what else?) a chili bowl. Los Angeles Times
-- Eating LA takes chef Robert Danhi's tour of Little Saigon in Westminster.

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: The first Chili Bowl was opened by Art Whizin in 1931 on Crenshaw Boulevard. He sold his wife's wedding ring, among other things, to get the business going. (Jim Heimann / July 31)

Must wine bar threatens local blog Eater LA with legal action after negative post

Restaurateurs have long voiced their displeasure at negative comments left by anonymous diners on sites such as Yelp. But what happens when a site runs negative -- and potentially defamatory -- comments from anonymous tipsters under the guise of news?

A blind item about the Must wine bar in downtown L.A. has left the restaurant's co-owners, Coly Den Haan and Rachel Thomas, angry enough to threaten local dining blog Eater LA with legal action.

Today the blog ran an item asserting that the Must falsely advertised items on its menu and, perhaps more crucially, threatened diners' health with poor sanitation and food safety. Their source? An anonymous tipster.

"Cheese plates are not as advertised - Double Glouster Chedder, Explorateur Triple Cream Brie, Point Reyes, etc. are all in fact US Foods low-budget generic. You are paying $15 for $4 worth of generic cheese... House Made Peanut Butter is US Foods Generic... Besides not adhering to simple food saftey standards, such as soap, sanitizing, and throwing out chicken salad that's 2 weeks old, 90% of all 'fresh' menu items are cooked days beforehand and sit in the fridge, including all vegetables; even the ones that would take 5 minutes to cook per order." (19:59:27 UTC)

"Those accusations are completely false and we have receipts to prove it," says Den Haan.

Carne asada is not a crime -- once again [Updated]

Loncheros have won the latest round in the ongoing battle between taco trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants. A group of enterprising UCLA law students helped overturn a Los Angeles city ordinance that would have severely crimped taco truck operators' ability to do business. This comes after an August 2008 ruling that struck down a similar Los Angeles County ordinance.

Both ordinances required taco trucks to move every 30 minutes if parked in a residential zone and every 60 minutes if parked in a commercial zone. But unlike the harsher Los Angeles County ordinance, which was a misdemeanor criminal offense punishable by six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine, violating Los Angeles Municipal Code 80.73(b)(2)(F) was a less serious code infraction.