dining

Urbanspoon is a slot machine of food choices

Urbanspoon is a location-aware mobile app that helps the indecisive among us figure out where to eat. Open it up, and the Home screen presents you with a number of ways to receive restaurant recommendations or to simply search for a restaurant in your vicinity. You can Browse via category, see what's Nearby, or look at your Friends' profiles. There's also a built-in tool for booking reservations. If you're more into visual stimulation, the bottom of the Home screen displays a virtually endless slide show of photos from restaurants nearby. Swipe through them, find one you like, … Read more

Reporters' Roundtable: Dining 2.0

Today we're talking about one my favorite topics: food. Dining out, to be precise. I wrote a story in December about how at least one San Francisco restaurant owner, Mark Pastore of Incanto, had problems with OpenTable, the restaurant reservation service. I thought it was an interesting snapshot of what the Web has done time and again: upset and upend well-established business models, sometimes with unexpected and negative side effects that go along with the numerous upsides.

There are several companies affecting the restaurant business. OpenTable radically changed the way restaurants fill their seats. Yelp changed how people get reviews of restaurants, effectively killing Zagat's lock on the mobile guidebook market. Modern Web 2.0 and mobile darlings like Groupon and Foursquare are continuing to change what people pay for dining out and how they find out about restaurants.

There are lessons to be learned here that affect all small and local businesses, and that's what we are discussing today, with two guests intimately familiar with these issues.

First up, Incanto's Mark Pastore. Mark is a well-known and unconventional restaurateur and stands out in San Francisco, where it's hard for any dining establishment to get noticed. (He also owns Boccalone.)

Also joining us: John Li, co-founder of Menuism.com, a local Web start-up for reviewing restaurants and dishes. John and his team are in the middle of "dining meets Web space" and trying to break into the big leagues, and he can tell us what that's like.

Subscribe: iTunes (MP3)iTunes (320x180)iTunes (640x360)Podcast RSS (MP3)Podcast RSS (320x180)Podcast RSS (640x360)

Some of our discussion points… Read more

Find great food with iOS

If you like Yelp, but you're after much more granular information on food and drink, then Spork is just what what you need to fulfill your craving. This iPhone app (and its companion Web site) lets you simply enter a food or drink item and then populates a list of options nearby, many of them with ratings and comments by other Spork users to help you determine which restaurant has the best al pastor taco or cupcake (for example). You can also rate and recommend dishes yourself as well as add them to a "to do" list, … Read more

Five last-minute gifts you can print at home

My undying thanks to everyone who wrote and commented with such kind words yesterday. I was really flabbergasted by the show of support, and I appreciate the reminder that Cheapskate readers are the coolest, kindest folks on the planet.

This is an update of a post I did last year around this time.

Well, here we are, just one week to go until the ho-ho-holiday. If you're a procrastinator like me, you might be scrambling to find a last-minute gift for, say, your trusty mail carrier, the kids' schoolteacher, or the office Secret Santa party.

No problem: all you … Read more

Find nearby deals with the Entertainment Book Companion

As a bona fide cheapskate (and author of the eponymous blog), I'm a longtime fan of the Entertainment Book. For about $30 (a little more in some states), it provides substantial discounts for thousands of local stores, attractions, restaurants, movie theaters, and the like.

In my experience, the book pays for itself within a month or two, then offers additional savings (often major savings) throughout the rest of the year. Killer deal.

Just one problem: a lot of coupons go to waste because we don't know where the deals are. We might be out and about, looking for … Read more

Five-deal Friday: Save big on storage, games, Wi-Fi, and more

I really wasn't intending to write up five different deals today, but I just couldn't settle on one. Take a look:

1. Newegg has a Samsung 1-terabyte internal SATA hard drive for $41.99 (plus around $7 for shipping). That is just... just... words fail me. Granted, this is an open-box, bare-bones drive, meaning you don't get so much as a SATA cable along with it. But I've never seen a lower price on a terabyte. Wow.

2. Want to upgrade the Wi-Fi performance of an older laptop or desktop? Meritline has the Tenda W311U 802.11n USB adapter for $8.99 shipped.… Read more

Five last-minute gifts you can print!

Uh, oh! Just a few more shopping days until the ho-ho-holiday. Are you scrambling for a last-minute gift for your trusty mail carrier, the kids' schoolteacher, a co-worker, or someone else on your list?

Good news: All you need is a printer. These five stores let you print your own gift certificates for fast, easy, and downright special in-person giving:

Amazon.com On any Amazon page, click the Gift Cards link, then choose Print a gift card. The minimum amount is $5, but you're not limited to increments: Your certificate can be in the amount of, say, $12.09 … Read more

Get a $10 Restaurant.com gift certificate for 80 cents

We interrupt your regularly scheduled tech deals to bring you this important bulletin...

Food!

Specifically, restaurant food. As many of you know, Restaurant.com sells gift certificates for a fraction of their face value. And right now, you can buy them for a fraction of that fraction.

For example, $25 certificates normally sell for $10, but if you enter coupon code ENTREE at checkout, the price drops to $2. And $10 certificates, normally $4, drop to just 80 cents. Yowza.

For those unfamiliar with Restaurant.com, the only real "string" attached is a minimum food or drink purchase. … Read more

Five ways to eat cheap this weekend

People--supermodels, mostly--often stop me in the street and say, "Rick, your tech deals are insanely awesome, but what about food? Surely finding all those bargains makes you hungry?"

Then I say, "Yes, but don't call me 'Shirley,'" and they shake their heads sadly, having realized that bloggers are just as unfunny in person as they are online.

Anyhoo, it being Friday and all, I thought I'd take a tech break and serve up some cheap eats you can score this weekend:

This printable coupon from Boston Market ( PDF) gets you 20 percent off "… Read more