This is the kind of story a natural disaster makes you forget is important: a couple Saturdays ago, Katie Holmes and her daughter Suri had dinner at Mr. Chow next to a group of fellow diners dressed up as Katie and Suri Freedom Fighters for Halloween. Also present: a guy dressed as Tom Cruise's character from Top Gun.

Vincent Gallo is a giver. In the past, the actor/director/pervert has put his seed and his sexual "company" on the auction block. Now, because "I'd rather buy shoes," he is auctioning the snobbiest painting in America and other five-figure treasures.

• Di Fara sells the city's most expensive slice of pizza. (The price was just raised to $5.) A symptom of the recession? A sign the recession is over? Something else? Now even the mayor has been forced to weigh in on the subject. [NYT]
• The Oyster Bar in Grand Central has lost its liquor license. [Eater]
• Closings: Centovini on West Houston will close tomorrow; Brooklyn's Bonita closes in August; and Baraza on Avenue C has already closed its doors.
• The insanely messy legal feud between Philippe and Mr. Chow continues. [GS]
• The perfect complement to a summer lobster roll? Lobster ice cream. [GS]
• The critical deets from yesterday's "beer summit": The president drank a Bud Light; Joe Biden had a Bucklers; Henry Louis Gates opted for a Sam Adams Light; and Cambridge cop James Crowley sipped on a Blue Moon. [NYP]

• Michael Chow has filed suit against Philippe Chow for "unfair and deceptive trade practices, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, conversion, and trademark infringement," among other things. [NYP, GS]
• A list of eateries that just opened, or will be open soon. [Gothamist, Eater]
• A controversy is brewing over plans to sell food on the High Line. [NYDN]
• Thirteen Dunkin' Donuts locations will change their names this weekend and become part of Tim Hortons, a donut chain that's popular in Canada. [NYT]
• New York magazine's Grub Street food blog is going national. [WSJ]
• Reminder! New York Restaurant Week begins on Sunday. [NY1, NYCGO]

• Is Amy Sacco's Bungalow 8 about to broke? That's what some former staffers claim, who say they haven't been paid in weeks now. [Gawker]
• Ward III, a new "saloon" by the team involved with Macao, The Odeon, and Grace—and decorated with Wakiya cast-offs—opens on Friday. [Thrillist]
• A roundup of spots that have closed in recent days. [Eater]
• The feud between Mr. Chow and Philippe is heating up, it seems. [GS]
• Raines Law Room has opened a "clandestine garden," not that anything can be very clandestine when it appears on Vogue's website. [Vogue]
• Michael Huynh has another East Village Baoguette planned. [EVGrieve]
• Wolfgang Puck's latest, quasi-food related venture: He plans to take control of the top-level domain .food and then sell off the Internet addresses to chefs and restaurateurs. Sounds, uh, interesting. [WSJ/Speakeasy]

I can imagine it all right now. The hallway leading up to Brett Ratner's bedroom lined with MTV Music Video awards, scented candles, rose petals and framed photos that'd feel more home in Brett & Bob Evans' 'Book of Us'. The song above blasting through the Bose Audio system all through out the house; vibrating and rattling the windows. Yet the only thing spoken the entire night probably was, "Just not in my eyes, okay?"