Crave

Get 20 percent off your next Denny's Grand Slam (and everything else on your bill) with this coupon.

(Credit: Denny's)

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 "any restaurant purchase." I'm not sure if that means the entire bill or just one item. Anyway, it's good until October 24. I recommend printing several.
• This printable coupon from Denny's (PDF) gets you 20 percent off your entire check. It's good until October 24. I recommend printing several.
• At Jamba Juice, you can buy one smoothie and get a second one (for a friend or kindly blogger) for $1. Here's the printable coupon. It's good through September 27.
• At Papa John's, you can buy a large two-topping pizza and get a large cheese pizza for 25 cents by applying coupon code 92209 at checkout. (Obviously you have to order online.) In other words, one pizza for the grown-ups and one for the kids. Good through October 4.
• Finally, old standby Restaurant.com is offering major savings on its gift certificates when you apply coupon code TREAT. $25 certificates will cost you just $3 apiece, while $10 certificates drop to just $1.20. That's some cheap eatin'! I'm not sure when the code expires, but you should definitely check out each restaurant's requirements before purchasing.

OK, there you go, food fans. Anything here whet your appetite? Me, I'm all about the pizza, the world's most perfect food.

Also, speaking of this weekend, my CNET overlords are chaining me to my desk for the remainder of this "100 Days of Deals" holiday thingy, so check back tomorrow (and every Saturday until 2010, apparently) for another deal from yours truly.

As for Sunday, well, it's anybody's guess what those crazy "CNET Staffer" kids will come up with, but if it's as bad as last weekend, we'll all have a good laugh on Monday.

Cheapskate out. (Wow, that's a terrible sign-off.)

Use coupon code 'SAVE' to get $25 vouchers for $3.

(Credit: Restaurant.com)

Hungry? Like to dine out? Restaurant.com normally lets you buy $25 gift certificates for $10, but right now you can scoop them up for just $3 apiece. Simply enter coupon code SAVE when you get to the shopping cart.

Anyone familiar with Restaurant.com knows there are usually a few small strings attached, like a minimum food or drink purchase. However, it's not like you have to order a case of wine or anything. And you can print the coupon right on your own printer: It's immediately ready for use.

A few months back I used one of the gift certificates for a local Italian place, and except for a slight delay while the manager called to verify the coupon, everything went smoothly.

In these horrendous economic times, this deal is too good to pass up. Just make sure to read all the terms and conditions before you buy your certificates, just so you avoid any nasty surprises when the check comes. Bon appetit!

Crave UK recently went for dinner at Inamo restaurant in London, where interactive touch-sensitive tables take your order. Each table has an overhead projector and a mouse trackpad, so your dining surface is effectively a PC monitor. You can customize your "tablecloth," play a video game against your companion, and order a taxi to get you home.

When you're ready to order, you can browse the menu, with each dish projected onto your place setting. When you've chosen, you can even see a live Webcam feed of your chef at work. The restaurant's founders say the concept evolved from the simple idea of "wouldn't it be cool if you could just hit a button and a waiter brought you another beer?" Watch our video for more.

(Via Crave UK)

E-readers are all the rage (this week at least), so it should come as no surprise that another e-reader story is appearing on Crave.

Tech-On reports that Fujitsu is currently conducting a test of the Kindle-like Flepia mobile information terminal in Tokyo at the Termina Kinshicho Fujiya Restaurant.

The test is being conducted as a joint venture between SoftBank Telecom and Mainichi Newspapers.

I get the feeling that in the U.S. they'd have to chain these to the wall.

(Credit: Tech-On)

Customers of the restaurant will be able to use the Flepia's (maybe Flepia is the plural?) to browse newspapers and advertisements wirelessly sent to the terminals.

Accoring to Tech-ON, the companies will verify whether the electronic paper module can be accepted as a terminal for reading newspapers, train schedules and weather reports, and whether the service can promote sales and boost customer satisfaction.

This system uses the "BB Mobile Point" wireless LAN service to deliver the content and to regularly update the content being displayed on the Flepia.

The Flepia uses electricity only when the displayed information is switched. As they don't need to be charged during business hours, there is no need to provide electricity to the table. LCD panel-based terminals, which have been used on tables (in japan), require an electrical supply at the table.

Hopefully someone had the foresight to serve the menu through the service as well. That seems like a given to me, but what do I know about quirky Japanese gizmos?

(Credit: CNET Networks)

In this day and age when every other person is a self-described foodie, finding the best mobile application to point you to a taste bud-bending experience requires as much discernment as finding the authentic voice from among throngs of folks who think they know good eats.

I'd be lying if I didn't claim snobby epicurean tendencies, myself.

This headstrong belief in one's own taste credentials is exactly what fuels the need for informative and well-designed food-finding applications. Too simple and a foodie will shun it. Too esoteric and it could alienate a growing segment of people who really care about the art and science of meal-making.

I've recently studied several restaurant-recommending applications for iPhone and other mobile platforms, including Yelp and Urbanspoon for iPhone and Zagat To Go for Windows Mobile, Palm, and BlackBerry, and wondered how relative newcomers Munch ($0.99) and LocalEats ($0.99) compare to these more established services.

Munch for iPhone turns out accurate results, but what's with the ratings?

(Credit: CNET Networks)

There are, of course, things to laud and criticize with each app. Munch's interface has a great method for quick-launching searches for pizza, Mexican, and so on from icons in the screen navigation. You can select other cuisines from a scrolling list. Munch returns wonderfully accurate search results, but is devoid of context. There are no reviews, no Web site listings, and every restaurant we looked at was rated with five empty stars. That's doable if you want a listings app, but for anyone trying to make intelligent choices, it just won't work.

LocalEats fares much better. The app brings you the best 100 (or more) restaurants in 50 U.S. cities as determined by a team of foodie professionals, authors of the online dining guide Where the locals eat. The benefit is that unlike Urbanspoon, no national chain even thinks of making an appearance. You can search each city's highest-rated establishments by alphabetical order, cuisine type, or the best of each category. For larger cities you can also search by neighborhood.

Yelp on the iPhone maps and calls destinations and provides user ratings, but leaves off other social-networking elements.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Yelp for iPhone contains all the ingredients you'd expect from the well-known site for users to rate local business and restaurant listings--except one. It has a perplexing tendency to space out when loading user reviews. The instability is surely an early bug, but a detraction nonetheless.

Apart from that, Yelp for iPhone features a clear display composed of category listings for nearby restaurants, bars, banks, and so on. Like so many of the other apps that CNET editors have reviewed, Yelp's iPhone offering taps into the phone's GPS receptors to find matching listings in your neighborhood, with further parameters on distance and hours available in the button marked Filter.

Each listing on the results page squeezes in the address, user ratings, distance, and price range. Drilling deeper spreads the information out in a format that lets you map the location, click to call, begin browsing through user reviews, and bookmark the page.

Yelp.com is a data-intensive site bulging with user opinions and social-networking addenda. The iPhone app was clearly never intended as a replacement, but as a companion for the lost or weary to seek out a bike shop or bite to eat. That much is evident by the read-only quality, mobile-specific mapping and call functions, and the de-emphasis on social networking. Still, while the closed, self-centeredness of Yelp for iPhone is somewhat refreshing, certain scheduling capabilities would be welcome--like the ability to invite a friend to lunch.

Now in its fifth version, Zagat To Go, compatible with the PDA and platform in-crowd, gives locomotive users access to Zagat's sprawling database of cleverly amalgamated dining reviews and ratings for the best spots in town for food, service, and decor.

The mobile version of the gastro-household brand makes good use of cell phone technology to deliver maps and directions, though Zagat strangely passes up some low-hanging functionality that forces users to do extra legwork as a result. Watch the First Look video below or read the hands-on review for more detail.

Try Zagat To Go for free:
Zagat To Go for BlackBerry
Zagat To Go for Palm | Zagat To Go for Palm (Mac installer)
Zagat To Go for Windows Mobile 5
Zagat To Go for Windows Mobile 5 smartphones
Zagat To Go for Pocket PC

>>See all First Look videos

Like every year, the Consumer Electronics Show is jam-packed with gadgets, from shiny new cell phones to giant TVs.

But this year, reporters scouring the CES show floor found a few goodies for the foodies too.

Microsoft's Mark Bolger gives a demo of Wine Bar on the company's surface computer.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

CNET News.com's Ina Fried sat down Wednesday with Mark Bolger of Microsoft's surface computing team to see what types of applications the tabletop technology could be used for. One of the ideas they've come up with is a system called Wine Bar that would allow restaurant-goers to select from a restaurant's wine list based on their taste preferences. So you can imagine selecting traits like acidity or fruitiness and having the tableside computer bring back appropriate wines from the restaurant's wine list. Or those who buy wine based on the pretty labels (you know who you are) could visually scroll through the list and look at each bottle.

Bolger also suggests the system could then make food recommendations based on the wine that's been ordered. That might be the reverse of how most people order their meals, but I like the way he thinks.

Click here to see Fried's video.

(Credit: Crave Asia)

Forget the Slow Food movement. True geeks are in a rush to spend their cash on the latest electronics, not snobby epicure. So when we spotted a fast-food restaurant that's automated, our heart rates sped up accordingly.

Kitchen Mogu Mogu is a Singapore-based Japanese fast-food restaurant that styles itself after similar dining concepts in Japan. In fact, it feels like buying from a vending machine, only in this case it's hot Japanese grub, not sodas or candy bars.

The transaction is easy. Tap the touch screen for your orders and make your payment. You can choose to pay using cash (notes and coins) or EZ-link (a Singapore wireless card payment system). Next, you just have to pick up your order at the next counter.

The human factor can still be problematic. I can't remember how many times I've had to repeat my order or hold my tongue when my double beef patty was somehow transformed into a soggy fish sandwich.

So should your next order at Kitchen Mogu Mogu turn awry, you only have yourself to blame. But if you crave a human touch, the restaurant has a sweet young woman hand to coach the novices, or if you need to scream at something other than a machine.

(Source: Crave Asia)