SobeWire: The 2008 Golden Clog Nominees Announced!. (Eater)

Michael Ruhlman and Tony Bourdain have concocted The Golden Clog Awards (Ruhlman has previously announced as much on his blog), a quirky little awards event born out of “too many beers and late night yakitori,” as Bourdain explained to Eater yesterday. The awards ceremony, or “awards ceremony,” will take place this Friday at 2:00 PM in Miami Beach, as part of the 2008 South Beach Wine & Food Festival, which does lend a certain, frightening air of credibility to the proceedings.

One of the awards, “The Mario”, goes to “the chef/restaurateur who best multi-tasked, multi-platformed, merchandised, whored himself, or opened multi-units (either while impaired–or not) and yet STILL managed to protect the quality of the mothership–while continuing to make valuable contributions to the restaurant landscape.” The nominees for the award? Tom Collichio, Thomas Keller, and Mario Batali.

It would be wonderfully ironic if he fails to win the award that is named in his honor. I would suspect nothing less from Tony Bourdain.