foodha for thought - menuism blog

Mothers can be so stereotypical, such as when they look worried when you so much as sneeze, or when they tell you to drive carefully. Mother’s Day is, in part, a celebration of those stereotypes and how our mothers can be downright silly when it comes to their children.
These are universal themes. But what about mothers across the country? Where do you get an East Coast mom the best chowder, or the best guacamole for the San Francisco mother? We’ve looked to our users to find out.
Get in the car and take your mother to one of these fancy places to say thanks for all they’ve done and all they’ll continue to do – and if she grips the door handle and says, “Slow down, slow down,” this one time, at least, you should do it without sighing.

The Boston Mom

Your mom took you to the Boston Children’s Museum when you were young, and happily drove you on college visits to what seemed like every single college in Massachusetts. Hey, how about taking her to a restaurant? That’d be wicked cool. Try Union Oyster House, and thank her for all she’s done for you while she destroys some fresh lobster.

The New York Mom

Get her what she really wants: a perfectly grilled Porterhouse at the famous Peter Luger Steak House. Order some broccoli on the side to make her happy; no matter how old you are, you’ve still got to eat your vegetables.

The San Francisco Mom

Tear your mom away from her pottery wheel and yoga mat and scoot over to Maya. If you or your mother are vegetarian, don’t fear; there’s food for you, and more importantly, more guacamole than you can shake a lamb’s tail at.
Otherwise, try the piramida de res, consisting of hanger steak, grilled tomatoes, sautéed onions, a black bean puree, and a chile vinaigrette.

Nothing says, “I love you, Mom,” more than vertical food.

The Chicago Mom

How many times did your mother take you to the Shedd Aquarium during that phase in your childhood when you ate lots of tuna fish sandwiches and insisted you were going to be a marine biologist? Say thanks with a Prince Edward Island Mussels served with smoked sausage at Sweets & Savories. For an entrée, check out the Mediterranean Seafood Stew.

The Washington D.C. Mom

How many mothers can looking perfectly at ease eating pizza in cashmere & pearls? Bet your mom can. Take her to 2 Amys and order a meal as quirky and fantastic as she is. How about pizza with garlic and anchovies with deviled eggs on the side?

Where’s the place in your town that just seems to yell, “Mom, you were right all along”? Leave us a comment.

Your marriage proposal left something to be desired. You can’t remember the last time you told your mother that you loved her. Hey, you’re just not good with emotions. So how can you write a restaurant review that says how you really feel?

Abandon the Obvious. Start by ending your love affair with words like good, delicious, and perfect. They’re the comfort blankets of the English language and you’re all grown up now. You don’t need to be a foodie to know what you’re tasting. Remember it. Was it crispy? Was it soft on the inside? Did it have a sweet aftertaste?

Take Pictures. Pictures will jolt your memory and fill in the gaps in your description. Plus, everyone loves a little smutty food porn. Take these examples.

A photo by justin wickedly labeled, “All You Can Eat”. From Tadashi Sushi.

A burrito for a small army from Sandiago’s Mexican Grill. Photo by fattiusthebear.

Write about the Interesting and Funny. Was there a fire in the kitchen? Were the men sitting one table over squabbling over their golf game? These things are all part of the dining experience. If it really stood out in your memory, write about it.

Don’t Hide Your Personality. Some of us can do the whole swirl, sniff and slurp wine tasting without giggling, and some of us can’t. So what if you don’t write for Gourmet magazine? There are still countless numbers of people who want to read about your opinion. After all, that’s why they’re visiting a public restaurant review site.

Re-Read Your Review. After you’ve finished, take a moment to look back. Check for typos that make you look silly. Try to read it from the point of view of a stranger: would you be captivated by what you’re reading? Would you find it useful? Would you give yourself an A? Tweak as necessary.

Menuism Users Show You How It’s Done
Or, select words from the superstars.

Rayvenhaus
Motto: Searching the bounty main for the best restaurants!
Best Trait: His honesty results in laugh-out-loud reviews. He also brings in personal experience. “I’ve slopped food in cleaner pig troughs then the bathroom at this restaurant.” (Taco Bell, Lynwood)
Memorable quotes: “I’m telling you what, I love the service at this place. I think next time I’ll try one of their Subs in a Tub.”(Jersey Mike’s Subs)

trufflupagus
Best Trait: Her far-reaching vocabulary: not surprising, considering she’s a professional writer (and photographer). She describes the Mexican Bloody Mary at Café Colonial as “a mix of vodka and tequila with perfectly piquant tomato juice and spices.” And she makes the Shrimp al Ajillo at El Faro sound like a Biblical experience. “A terrific rendition of this incredible classic – small shrimp, bubbling in a clay casserole filled with hot sauce and an immense amount of garlic…” Want some yet?
Memorable Quotes: “You have to be a super-hardcore capsaicin addict to tango with these peppers.” (Spicy & Tasty)

tommers
Motto: The deliciousness is in the details!
Best Trait: He merrily foodies his way from start to finish: his four visits to the Three Seasons Restaurant in Palo Alto cumulated in an 811-word review. Skip a sentence and you’ll be missing out on gourmet-ing vicariously. But he’s no grumpy food critic: in his hundreds of words, you’ll be loath to find any more critical than “wasn’t great.”
Memorable Quotes: Worth noting are his epic struggles with the limiting star rating system. About Saha he writes, “Four stars, just barely”; with AUX Delices, it’s “Four stars going on five?”. But the best may be his happy response to the EOS Restaurant & Wine Bar: “Hot damn! What a great meal!”

March is here and the seasons are a-changin’! A new month means a new Food Fight, and this month we’re asking YOU to help us find the BEST BURGER in your city!

To participate, just review a restaurant and rate the burger you ate. You’ll be automatically entered into the contest to win $50 - you can find out all the nitty-gritty details at the main Food Fight contest page.

Fun fact: the average American consumes 27.8 pounds of hamburger a year. That works out to over 9 quarter-pound burgers a month, per person. Why not share your favorites, so everyone can enjoy a better burger?

Happy Eating!

John & Justin

p.s. We’re still tallying the best pancake results from February, and we’ll post the results soon.

Want to keep track of the latest reviews on Menuism? Try out using the RSS feeds. Keep your eye out for the RSS icon and add the link to your favorite RSS feed reader. At this time, we’ve got a few different feeds:

• All Reviews: If you want to know who’s eating what no matter where, grab this one: http://www.menuism.com/reviews/feed
• Cities: If you want to just keep track of what’s going on around your city, grab one of these. Some examples:
  • http://www.menuism.com/cities/US/IL/Chicago/reviews/feed
  • http://www.menuism.com/cities/US/WA/Seattle/reviews/feed
  • http://www.menuism.com/cities/US/CA/San+Francisco/reviews/feed
• Users: If you want to keep tabs on a particular user, grab the feed from their user page. For example, on my profile page, the RSS feed for all my reviews is: http://www.menuism.com/users/justin/reviews/feed
• Friends: If you just care about where your friends are eating, grab the feed link on your “Friends” page. For example, on my friends page the RSS feed for my friends is: http://www.menuism.com/users/justin/reviews/friends/feed

If you don’t have an RSS reader yet, here are few you can try:

• Bloglines: A web-based RSS reader
• My Yahoo!: The Yahoo! start page can include RSS feeds as a content module. More info here.
• Google Reader: Google’s version of a web-based RSS reader
• Vienna: (Mac) A downloadable RSS reader so you can sync your feeds then read them offline.
• Firefox: You can use the Firefox browser to keep track of RSS feeds through “live bookmarks”. Menuism also looks better if you use Firefox or Camino (on Mac).
• More top feed readers here

Here’s Feedburner’s Feeds 101 guide if you want to read more about RSS feeds.

Go grab a feed to keep up on the food!

Leave a comment if you have a RSS reader recommendation for others or an RSS suggestion.
Justin

Happy Holidays! We hope you’re spending some restful, quality time with those closest to you. We’re taking time to count our blessings, and one of the things we’re most grateful for is the wonderful response we’ve gotten from you, our awesome readers and users. Be it reviews, praise, comments, suggestions, or even outright criticism, we appreciate it all - Menuism wouldn’t be where it is without you.

Everyone celebrates differently (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, etc.) during the holidays, but there’s one common theme that unites all revelers - eating! So whatever your celebration, we hope these holidays find you happy, healthy, well fed, and brimming with restaurant reviews just waiting to be written.

The coming year has lots of exciting things in store for Menuism - stay tuned!

-John and Justin

Quick Reminder: Write reviews to enter the end of month t-shirt drawing!

At the end of the month, we’ll be giving away a free Menuism t-shirt to one of Foodha’s Picks. If you haven’t noticed yet, Foodha randomly picks a top tipped review over the past 30 days to display on the front page (since he likes food so much, the review has to include a review of the food). On January 1st, we’ll load up the front page of Menuism and see who the random winner is (excluding John and Justin of course - we already have shirts :P).

Right now, the users that look to be in the running are:

• Shaomai
• Mandeelish
• Mirabell_19

If you don’t want to write reviews but you want a t-shirt, then buy one at the Menuism Shop. We also have dark gray hoodies now too, but they aren’t up on the page yet. Send us an email if you want one of those.

Some tips on getting tipped:

• After you write a review, click on the “Share” link on the review confirmation page to send it to your friends or the people you dined with. Tell them to join to tip you!
• Invite your friends to join the site so they can keep track of all your recent reviews.
• Good reviews don’t just mean reviews with high ratings. Make sure your review is useful, helpful, and/or entertaining.

If you enjoy the review, give it a tip! ‘Tis the season for giving afterall

Happy Eating,

Justin

To help even more in the restaurant decision making process, we’ve added some Fun, but Optional survey questions to the review form to help users express even more information about their dining experience. Right now, we’ve got 3 questions around the areas of ambience, cost, and service. However, instead of taking the rating or score approach, we decided to phrase the questions in survey form - all you have to do it pick an answer. Here are the current questions and answers, along with a screenshot of the new form:

• Ambience: I came here for
  • a business meeting - more professional setting, somewhere you can talk and look respectable
  • a romantic date - a little on the quieter side with a more intimate setting
  • a family meal - pretty casual and you can bring your kids
  • fun with friends - a lively atmosphere that’s more accomodating to larger and louder groups
  • a meal on the go - not much of a dining atmosphere, either you come here just to eat or you get it to go
• Cost: My share of the meal was
  • Less than $10
  • Between $10 and $25
  • Between $25 and $50
  • More than $50
• Service: I tipped (or would have)
  • Less than 15% - subpar
  • Between 15% and 18% - average
  • More than 18% - better than expected

While the bucketed answers constrain you a little in choice, they offer a more descriptive answer than “Ambience:4 stars” or “Cost:5 stars” because those ratings are subjective. I might think $15 dollars deserves 5 stars for cost while someone else might think it’s 1 star.

Hopefully this additional information helps you both describe your experience more accurately and decide which places suit your needs. Let us know if you have any other ideas to improve the decision making process.

- Justin

We’re proud to announce that Menuism is officially open!

Menuism is a community-based restaurant guide where you can contribute any information about any of your favorite restaurants—including the menus. By participating, you’ll benefit by receiving daily recommendations from your group of friends and also get community recognition. You can now quickly find the places you love to eat at and find new places to try.

If you want to know more check out the tour at http://www.menuism.com/about/tour or just go the http://www.menuism.com and start browsing around. Just ate or about to eat? Keep the receipt so you can write a review and rate what you ate!

Thanks for those who have already used the site and given feedback. We haven’t gotten to all of it but we’re not done by any means – there’s still plenty on the to-do list!

Keep the feedback coming because this is only the beginning. If you want to keep up to date on all the changes, subscribe to the RSS feed.

Thanks!

John & Justin

It’s been quiet on this blog lately, but for good reason – we’ve been hard at work making small (and not-so-small) changes all over the site. Many of these changes come directly from your feedback, so thank you, and keep it coming!

Reviews

• Wrote a review, but made a typo? You can now edit the text bodies of your reviews and accompanying menu item reviews. Just go to your reviews list on your user homepage and click on the offending block of text to make your fix.
• While you’re looking at all your beautiful reviews, you might notice that they’re now sortable by the most recent reply – this makes it easy to quickly respond to the whims of your adoring fans.

Users

• User search: we’ve added a simple user search capability to the site. Just click on the checkbox in the search header to find a user, and enter their screen name or first name. Enter their city and state, or leave the location box blank to search across the whole site. Now it’s super easy to find your friends and favorite reviewers!
• Profile customization: show the world who you are! On your user homepage you can now add a custom tagline, website url and personal description which are visible to all users. I challenge you to come up with a better tagline than Justin’s – “living to eat is much more fun”.

Invites

• It’s great to see that people are using the invite feature to share the site with their friends, but the feedback loop wasn’t fully complete, until now. Now when the friends you invite join the site, two things happen:
  1. You get an confirmation email with the great news.
  2. Your friend automatically becomes your fan (on the site). Who wouldn’t be a fan of your beautiful self?

Design

• New front page: what do you think? We pulled out the user lists to better recognize both the best tippers and reviewers and rearranged things to increase the educational effectiveness of the page.
• New restaurant pages: we hope the smoother layout and new nifty little graphics help you navigate the restaurant pages more easily. Writing a review and voting for the menu usefulness has never been easier!

In addition to these features we’ve also made a lot of under-the-cover changes and fixes to keep things running quickly and smoothly for your food-finding enjoyment. Let us know what you think of the changes, and keep spreading the word!

-John

p.s. If you’re curious about the other thing that’s kept us busy lately, you can read about it on our business blog.

Just a couple updates.

1. View all reviews at http://www.menuism.com/reviews. Just a fun way to view all the reviews ever written. Shows the user and the number of tips they’ve received for the review. We’ll probably add some sorting capabilities to this, so let us know what you’d like to see.
2. Updated city page Julie helped us revamp the city page design so it looks much cleaner. Let us know if you have some design suggestions or if you’d like to see certain content up there.

Other minor things:

1. Your cities under the search bar If you haven’t noticed yet, there are links to the city pages under the search bar. Before they were just top cities but now they include the cities that you have stored location for. Just a quick shortcut to see what’s going on locally. Oh, and if you haven’t tried it yet and you’re bored, try out the raNDom link. It’s fun to see where you end up and see what they’re eating (well, I think it’s fun).
2. Menu last updated On the restaurant page, there’s a little notice saying when the last time an item was added or edited just so you can tell if the menu’s been getting any love recently (thanks Sara).
3. Fixed some minor nuisances with signup Hopefully you’ve already created an account.. (thanks PhilosopherK and Risto)
4. Fixed stars issue for review in IE Hopefully they should work fine now. Let us know if they don’t. (thanks takeru)
5. Review form is less confusing …hopefully. (thanks methodrider)

Thanks to all for the feedback so far. We’re still going through it all while working on some other things along the way. Keep it coming!

- Justin