• Obama’s visit yesterday to Great Eastern in San Francisco to grab lunch called attention to the fact that it is among a handful of places in the U.S. — and nine in S.F.’s Chinatown — still serving shark-fin soup. But this is kind of a non-scandal because the California law allows restaurants to sell off their stock of shark fins until July 2013. [SF Chron]
• China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, is in town to discuss the trade of farmed food and food security with Antonio Villaraigosa. Sexy! [HuffPo]
• Local chicken favorite Dino’s Burgers is returning to Pico-Rivera nearly 22 years after closing in the city, with a new location recently opened. [Whittier Daily News]
• Gordon Ramsay is “disappointed” that the owner of Laurier Gordon Ramsay restaurant in Montreal is going to remove Gordo’s name from the restaurant. Ramsay had served as a consultant. [Daily Mail UK]
• Whole Foods is offering more discounts in an attempt to shed its elites-only image. [CBS]
• Quelle fromage! Bruce Palling heads to London and buys cheese with Alain Ducasse. [WSJ]
• Time to switch to fresh-squeezed: The FDA “won’t allow more fungicide in orange juice.” But why were they even considering it in the first place? [Reuters]
• Sam Sifton is talking apple pie — just the thing to brighten a winter day — in the Times. [NYT]