The Table

At a rally in Cleveland on Saturday, ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms, former President Barack Obama said President Donald Trump had the White House "looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory" because of all the gold, The National News Desk reports.

Trump answered on Monday at Joint Base Andrews: "For you to say it's a Cheesecake Factory — that just shows why you were a lousy president," adding that walls "hadn't been cleaned for years." The White House's X account posted a mock menu poking fun at the chain's roughly 20-page, 250-item menu, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ate lunch at the Washington, D.C., restaurant and criticized Obama.

Rick McCormack, the Cheesecake Factory's former vice president of design, told CNN he found the comparison "a little bit sad" and called it "the pettiness of politics." The report notes that since returning to office Trump has torn down the East Wing for a ballroom, paved over the Rose Garden and added gold-leaf fixtures to the Oval Office.

The Michelin Guide unveiled its second Manila and Environs & Cebu selection on Thursday night at the Manila Marriott Hotel: 127 establishments, including one Two Star restaurant, nine One Star restaurants, 31 Bib Gourmand picks and 86 Michelin-Selected restaurants.

Helm in Makati, led by chef Josh Boutwood, keeps its two stars. The only new star goes to Flow in Makati, led by chef Kevin Jonathan Uy. All eight returning one-star restaurants keep their star: Asador Alfonso (Cavite), Celera, Hapag, Inatô, Kása Palma and Toyo Eatery (Makati), Gallery by Chele (Taguig) and Linamnam (Parañaque). Michelin says Filipino cuisine made up nearly 60% of the newly selected places.

Special awards went to chef Frances Tariga's Tadhanà (Opening of the Year), Digámo's chef Francis Lacson (Young Chef), Tito Boy's Clyde Joshua Zafra in Pampanga (Service) and Automat's Ron Job Sanchez (Exceptional Cocktails).

Michelin revealed its 2027 Beijing & Tianjin selection at a ceremony in Tianjin on Wednesday, the first time Tianjin has been included. The combined list has 135 establishments: 34 starred restaurants, 48 Bib Gourmands and 52 Michelin Selected.

In Beijing (107 restaurants), Chao Shang Chao and Xin Rong Ji keep three stars, and Black Swan, Jingji, King's Joy, Lamdre and Lu Shang Lu keep two. The one-star list grows to 26 across 14 cuisine styles: Sichuan restaurant Chef 1996 is promoted from Selected, and Old Tower earns a star on its debut.

Tianjin's first selection has 27 places, including one star for China Banquet, a Huaiyang restaurant opened in 2023, plus 16 Bib Gourmands. Special awards went to Jun Dai of Lamdre (Mentor Chef), Yunjia Zhang of Under Clouds Green (Young Chef), Wei Qiao of Re Hai Fan Zhuang in Tianjin (Service) and Andrea Amadio of Monsieur Dior by Anne-Sophie Pic (Sommelier).

Since 2023 more than 4,900 businesses have carried Yelp's "Consumer Alert" banner, which sits on a business's page for 90 days after it is caught planting or paying for reviews, according to a recently published working paper described by Eater.

Co-author Yi Cao, an assistant professor of accounting at George Mason University, says flagged restaurants' foot traffic fell about 8%, dipped further around the holidays, and most had not recovered to pre-alert levels even 18 months later. The team matched Yelp data with SafeGraph foot-traffic records and Consumer Edge card transactions.

Cao says Yelp relies substantially on reports from consumers and owners, plus an algorithm that screens for AI-generated language. "When the risk is relatively low, the business owners decide the incremental benefits are worth the risk," he told Eater.

About 30 Thai restaurants operate out of the back rooms and upstairs lofts of traditional English and Irish pubs in London, BBC Travel reports.

The idea started at The Churchill Arms in Kensington: according to current manager James Keogh, owner Gerry O'Brien, an Irishman who took over in 1985, agreed to a month-long trial in summer 1988 after Thai chef Songkot Boonyasarayon asked to cook in the kitchen; food writer Nick Lander recalls lines around the block within weeks. Thai food was spreading as young Britons backpacked in Thailand in the late 1980s and '90s, and in the early 2000s Thailand's Global Thai campaign offered loans to help Thai citizens open restaurants abroad.

BBC Radio London's restaurant contributor Stephanie Brookes says many of these pubs "rival top restaurants in terms of quality and provenance of ingredients."

A 100-piece bag of assorted Halloween candy now averages $16.96, up from $9.91 five years ago, a 71% rise, according to a 2026 candy price study cited by Farmers' Almanac.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show candy and gum prices up 7.7% in the 12 months to September 2026, against 3.7% for consumer prices overall. Poor harvests and crop disease in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana drove cocoa to extraordinary highs in 2024 and 2025. Wholesale cocoa has since fallen sharply, but the article explains that big manufacturers buy cocoa on contracts set months ahead, so some of this year's Halloween chocolate was made with pricier beans; sugar, packaging, transport and labor costs also feed in.

Its tips: compare the price per piece rather than per bag, mix chocolate with other treats, check store apps, and buy for the number of trick-or-treaters you actually expect.