Fast-food restaurants plan a heaping helping of excess

Who's ready for a steaming-hot bowl of meat, eggs and cheese from Burger King for breakfast? Or a pizza with not just bacon but "double bacon" and six types of cheese?

Rolling into 2011, fast-food joints across the country are set to deploy a potent new arsenal of greasy goodness for Americans who have grown numb to mere burgers. Think spicier, cheesier, gooier. The new items flout principles of healthful eating and instead celebrate a spirit of wanton gluttony.

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Canada. Sales up at bars, restaurants

Sales for the food services and drinking places industry rose 0.8 per cent in October from the previous month to about $4.1 billion, Statistics Canada said Thursday. The price of food purchased in restaurants rose 0.3 per cent in October, the federal agency said. Since February, the agency said sales of food increased 0.7 per cent, with the price of food purchased in restaurants was up 1.4 per cent. The biggest advance in sales was in the limited-service restaurant sector, which was up 1.1 per cent. Sales at drinking places rose one per cent, while full-service restaurants saw a 0.7 per cent increase.

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The best Austrailian restaurants of 2010

CRISIS, what global financial crisis? A slew of great new restaurants opened, Neutral Bay became a surprise new dining destination and food stayed classy while the surrounds went downmarket, with no-bookings policies thriving as the queues outside lengthened.

Remarkably, Australians spent an extra $800 million on dining out in the past 12 months. The mining industry's not the only one enjoying boom times. Here are 10 of the best from this year.

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Gordon Ramseay tops list of five worst cookbooks of the year

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Gordon Ramsay’s World Kitchen: Recipes from The F-Word was slammed by the US watchdog Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

‘Ramsay has travelled to the ends of the Earth to bring back dishes that will wreak havoc on your health,’ the group declared.

One dish in particular was seized upon – Ramsay’s British Pheasant Casserole - which is made of two birds, smoked bacon, butter and double cream.

Also making the top five list of most unhealthy cookbooks in the US are Barefoot Contessa: How Easy is That? by Ina Garten, Home Cooking by Trisha Yearwood, How to Cook Like a Top Chef from the makers of Top Chef and The Primal Blueprint Cook by Mark Sisson and Jennifer Meier.

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La Caille co-owner and wife found in Provo Marriott Hotel in apparent murder-suicide

PROVO, Utah — The bodies of La Caille co-owner Steven Runolfson, 56, and wife Lisa, 57, of Sandy, were found Saturday night at the Provo Marriott Hotel in an apparent murder-suicide. Police say the couple had checked into the Provo Marriott Hotel on Dec. 23 and were suppose to check out out on Dec. 24. On Dec. 25, one of the managers went to the room to see if they had left. They found them in the room and notified Provo Police Department.   Read More:

On McDonald's Menu: Variety, Caution .

AUGUSTA, Ga.—More than 100 items crowd the menus at Dee and Christine Crawford's five McDonald's restaurants, ranging from familiar Egg McMuffins to newfangled fruit smoothies. The family franchisees recently added oatmeal and caramel-mocha beverages. Next up for consideration: frozen strawberry lemonade.

In certain restaurants around the country, McDonald's Corp. is testing flatbread sandwiches and "garden" snack wraps—chicken and vegetables wrapped in a tortilla.

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Lawyer alleges evidence destroyed in restaurant sexual harassment case

The lawyer for a woman alleging sexual harassment against the N9NE Group and its top executive in Las
Vegas is now claiming evidence has been destroyed in her case.

Leslie Culler on Dec. 13 sued Michael Morton and his N9NE Group, operator of popular restaurants and nightclubs at the Palms hotel-casino, as well as two more N9NE Group executives.

Culler claims she was fired as art director of the group in July after refusing sexual advances directed toward her by Morton and other male executives and objecting to “constant sexual harassment” in the workplace.
Attorneys for Morton and the N9NE Group have not yet filed their response to the allegation.

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Malaysia's Johor Corp says not selling QSR, KFC

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Malaysia's Johor Corp, the state investment arm of the country's southernmost state bordering Singapore, has decided it won't sell its indirect subsidiaries QSR Brands and KFC Holdings , upsetting plans of two rival foreign private equity bidders.
QSR and KFC Holdings, held via Johor Corp's 53 percent subsidiary Kulim, have been in the spotlight after receiving two unsolicited bids to buy the company, both of which involved foreign private equity firms.
Local tycoon Halim Saad had made a bid for QSR together with private equity firm CVC Group before the Carlyle Group made a better offer worth 1.94 billion ringgit ($618.8 million).
"QSR and KFC are not for sale," Johor Corp's president and chief executive Kamaruzzaman Abu Kassim said in a statement.

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Lawyer warns liquor licensing laws 'apply to all'

Those ringing in 2011 with a glass of champagne and no alcohol licence will be breaking the law - even tourists.

And so are those throwing a party and sharing their alcohol and those drinking in an emirate for which their licence is not valid.

Federal law makes it illegal to consume alcohol in the UAE without a licence - whether at home or in a hotel, and this applies to both residents and tourists, according to the Abu Dhabi-based lawyer Khalid Mustafa.
So while hotel establishments may rarely ask customers to produce their licence, drinking alcohol without a licence at such a venue could still lead to time in jail.

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French Couple Found Dead in North Bali Villa

(12/27/2010) Both the national news agency Antara and Bali Post report the mysterious death of a French couple staying in a small hotel in north Bali. Oliver Marroni (35) and his wife, Scapin (34) were found dead in Villa number 6 of the Villa Lumbung Bali in Munduk, Buleleng on Monday, December 20, 2010.

The couple reportedly checked into the hotel at 6:00 pm on Monday. One hour-and-a-half later the woman's nude body was found next to the fully clothed body of her husband in the bathroom of the villa. Ardiono, an employee of the Villa, discovered the bodies, raising the alarm with the senior management of the villa and local police.


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US to step up security at hotels and malls

The United States is stepping up security at "soft targets" like hotels and shopping malls, as well as trains and ports, as it counters the evolving Al-Qaeda threat, a top official said Sunday. A year after a foiled plot to bomb a US-bound passenger plane, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN's "State of the Union" program that other places and modes of transportation must now be scrutinized.

"We look at so-called soft targets -- the hotels, shopping malls, for example -- all of which we have reached out to in the past year and have done a fair amount of training for their own employees," Napolitano said.
Since an attempted bombing on a packed Saturday night in Times





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Jumeirah Group to manage 405-room hotel on Palm Jumeirah

Jumeirah Group, the hotel management company owned by Dubai’s government, will manage Jumeirah Zabeel Saray, a five-star hotel built on a man-made island shaped like palm tree in Dubai.

The 405-room hotel, with Ottoman inspired architecture, is scheduled to open in January, Jumeirah Group said in an emailed statement today.

The hotel, built on the west crescent of Palm Jumeirah, also includes 38 beach villas, 10 restaurants, bars, a nightclubs and boutiques.

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Abu Dhabi sees 27% surge in hotel guests in November

Heralding its arrival as a tourism competitor for Dubai, Abu Dhabi saw a leap of 27 percent in hotel guests in November compared to the same month in 2009, with guest nights surging 42 percent to mark the emirate’s second highest performing month of the year.

The surge brought the emirate to 1,646,799 guests total for the first 11 months of the year, close to its goal of 1.65mn for all of 2010.

The Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority reported that 169,001 guests stayed in the emirate last month, with guest nights at 544,753.

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NCAA weighing exemption status for the Bahamas

VIRGINIA Tech coach Seth Greenberg has tried to get his team as much exposure as he can, taking the Hokies to places like Cancun, Puerto Rico and Alaska. None of those destinations compared to what he experienced in a doubleheader held in a ballroom at a Bahamas resort that once hosted the Miss Universe Pageant.

 "Every single aspect of our experience was positive, from the locker rooms to the practice facility to the reception to the actual game experience," Greenberg said.

"Their attention to detail was second to none." The Battle at Atlantis made its debut this past weekend with Greenberg's Hokies facing Mississippi State and Georgia Tech against Richmond.

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New Beer Pouring Technique