John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, was recently caught trash-talking competitor Wild Oats on various Internet forums under the name Rahodeb, an anagram of his wife's name. Not so long ago, critic Lee Siegel posed as an anonymous commenter beneath his own essays and brought himself to shame. And now we have our own story of greed, deception, regret and Pinkberry with our commenter named Dave Craig. Soon after the Mackey story broke, we got an email from Craig asking that we remove all his comments. What an odd request, we thought. Then we thought a little more. And Googled.

When FR.OG arrived on Spring Street back in April, Didier Virot's glittery French fusion restaurant failed to impress. We gently panned it. Eater immediately placed it on its Deathwatch. But FR.OG is still around and is even enjoying a glut of publicity. In the last two weeks alone, FR.OG has been visited by an ambivalent Times critic Frank Bruni, a mooning Postie Steve Cuozzo and an intoxicated Johnny Miles of the Times style-land. It could be the food? But its Iago-like PR company, Hall PR, is happy to take the credit.

The restaurant world is fueled by shadowy PR organizations, a culinary world version of the Office of Strategic Influence. These buzz-building machines, invisible to your average diner, are responsible for much of what you eat, how long you wait to eat it and just how long you'll eat it for.

The restaurant world is fueled by shadowy PR organizations, a culinary world version of the Office of Strategic Influence. These buzz-building machines, invisible to your average diner, are responsible for much of what you eat, how long you wait to eat it and just how long you'll eat it for.