Anything’s better than a burger in a can. 

CBS News in NYC just filed a report on the new $81 luxury Kobe burger at Old Homestead Steakhouse on 9th Ave & 14th St…  Owners Greg and Marc Sherry claimed they thought up their top-dollar take on the Dollar Menu item when they decided to create “the most decadent food item of 2008.”   

If we’re just talkin’ burgers, 2007’s title was obviously taken by BLT Burger and their $62 Kobe burger – just a few blocks away from the Old Homestead.  Homestead had been the reigning champs since 2003, when they introduced a Kobe burger for about $40 less than their current price.

Considering they totally ignored the bigger story here (NYC’s forever expanding ”luxury burger” fetish), we’ve got one question for CBS: what percentage is the Old Homestead passing you on those $81 joints?

(For our money, we’ll rock the Shake Shack or DuMont over all other competition.)

A Southern California McDonald’s restaurants official says Egg McMuffin inventor Herb Peterson has died in Santa Barbara at age 89.

You are gone but not forgotten Mr. Peterson. Frank151 salutes you and your monumental contribution to the most important meal of the day.

The Onion’s A.V. site has a new online feature, Taste Test, where they taste weird food products and review the experience, and it’s actually a lot of fun.   Check out their latest, the German oddity Cheeseburger in a Can.

The stuff is real; it’s made by Trekking Mahlzeiten, a division of the Swiss camping & hiking company Katadyn which specializes in preserved meals, “just-add-water” style.  Trekking Mahlzeiten actually make the preserved rations — including powdered wine — for a majority of the most serious expeditions going on these days (guys like Sir Edmund Hillary and Arved Fuchs).  

Still, the A.V. staff say the cheeseburger sucks.  No surprise, really. 

Follow the jump to see some crazy close-ups of the burger in action.  (more…)

Michael Richards’ recent behavior aside, Frank will always have love for Seinfeld. But this week, media outlets got some bad news for the George Costanzas of the world. Turns out, the double dip actually can be potentially hazardous.

Student researchers at Clemson University, inspired by George’s dip styles, decided to test just how bad it really is to hit that guac bowl a second time. They were surprised to learn that 3+ dips can deposit more than 10,000 bacteria in the bowl. On the other hand, they didn’t study if those bacteria were actually the dangerous kind or not.

This is probably getting blown way out of proportion (we’ve got more of the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” mindset — and in some parts of the world, people have been sharing finger food for generations with no ill effects). But still, it would have been good to learn this before the Super Bowl.

Want nuggets and soda, but only have one cup holder? You’re in luck, so long as you’re in South Korea. A fast food chain there, “BBQ Chicken� has just released a new sack, one that combines nuggets and soda in one cup. The nuggets stay contained in a plastic holder at the top and the soda stays chill below. Sounds good if you’re into it, but for our money we want those nuggets fried in Coca-Cola.

Peep the Serious Eats write up here

In the mid-90’s, White Castle closed one of its oldest Brooklyn locations, on Church Ave in Flatbush. The empty fast-food joint was snapped up by the local Caribbean and Rastafarian community, who converted the whole place — down to the antique White Castle sign — into a vegan take-out legend.

Re-christened the Veggie Castle, it became a Brooklyn institution — “a right of passage for serious vegetarians,” said the New York Press.

But now, after more than a decade serving the city’s best vegan soul food, jerk tofu, ital stews, and over 40 juice blends (to treat everything from depression to impotence to menstrual cramps), the Veggie Castle lost its lease, and on Christmas Day it closed.

Tragic news for city Rastas, Caribbeans and vegans alike. Many a 40 has already been poured in the Veggie Castle’s parking lot.

FreeRice is an online game – a free, neverending vocabulary quiz.  Even if vocab’s not your thing, it’s surprising how fast playing the game can improve your lexicon.  The site also monitors your vocab as it improves, and adjusts gameplay to match.

More importantly, for each word you correctly identify, the website donates 20 grains of rice to starving communities around the world, paid for by advertisements on the gamepage.  They also keep daily and monthly tallies, which have been growing exponentially ever since the website launched in October. 

So this holiday season, consider making a donation that doesn’t cost you a cent — and will improve your communication skills at the same time….  Everybody wins.

Watch out though – it gets addictive.

Australian Reinhard Wurz broke the official record for most beer mugs carried at the same time, with a whopping 20. Photo taken from pintafterpint.

If you see your waiter carrying anything less than 20 beers at once, tell him he’s lazy.

“Lurking underground in the heart of Tokyo’s trendy Roppongi is a true heart of darkness - a members-only club that combines forbidden sex practices with the art of fine dining… The gist of it is, members pay a hefty fee at the door to be allowed to… have sex with the animal of their choice - which is subsequently killed, cooked and served to the violator and his party for dinner!” (via InventorSpot)

Apparently the price of glucose, the main ingredient in Gummi Bears, rose some 30% in 2006. Analysts claim that this is due in part to the increasing interest in bio fuels, which could raise food prices across the board as more land is diverted to grow crops for bio fuels instead of for food. This increase in the cost of glucose is threatening to raise the price of Gummi Bears. Haribo, the manufacturer of Gummi Bears is concerned that if the trend continues, Gummi Bears may become so expensive that they end up becoming a gourmet luxury food that only the rich can afford. (via Earth2Tech)