Check out Obama as a restaurant critic

As the new year dawns and Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States fast approaches, everyone in the media world is looking for an Obama story hook. The popular WTTW-Channel 11 show "Check, Please!" has finally found its hook in a "lost" episode that was taped in August 2001, but never aired after the restaurant review show premiered in October of that year.

Obama was just an Illinois state senator when he consented to serve as one of three layman restaurant critics who appeared with then-host Amanda Puck to discuss their favorite restaurant and critique one another's choices.

Obama offered up a Hyde Park eatery called Dixie Kitchen. And though the 15-year-old restaurant didn't benefit from any free publicity years ago, it no doubt will wind up on the radar screen of a lot of restaurant patrons when the lost episode finally airs twice on WTTW on Jan. 16, again Jan. 18 and once more at 4 a.m. Jan. 20, the day Obama is sworn in as president.

In case you're wondering, a WTTW spokeswoman couldn't tell us exactly why the "Check, Please!" episode with Obama never aired. But for its belated debut this month, the show's producers have apparently re-edited the episode and added more existing Obama footage to enhance the show's appeal just a bit more.