LocalEats – Review
By App Type: Uncategorized
Our rating: 
By: Magellan Press Inc.
Version #: 1.2.0
Date Released: 2008-08-03
Developer:
Price: 0.99
User Rating:
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A few weeks ago a good friend of mine from Colorado was in town for a few hours. He invited me to meet him in Manhattan for a quick bite. When I got into the city he asked where I wanted to go to eat. Not being great with directions or restaurant picks, I called my wife, told her where we were and what type of food we wanted. Fortunately, she told us where to eat and even gave me the phone number (yes, she is that organized).
That experience is why I was excited to try the BlackBook Guide restaurant, bar and hotel app a few weeks ago. I love the idea of not needing to make a last minute "Help me" call when I need to find a place to eat. I also love the idea of using my iPhone as a database of restaurants and then having the location feature show me what is closest. Unfortunately the BlackBook Guide is awful. The list of restaurants is slim and the location feature just doesn’t work.
Fortunately there are options like the LocalEats Guide. It takes helping users find good restaurants seriously by offering up a top 100 list in each of 50 major cities. The app
combines the latest technology with meticulous restaurant research to help locals and visitors alike choose from among the 100 best restaurants in the top 50 U.S. cities, and then guide them to their dining destinations.
The layout is excellent. The main screen asks if you want to use the location feature of the iPhone it makes quick work of finding a good restaurant close to your current position, input a specific local address manually or scan through the 100 restaurants of the city of your choice. You can also use it to "check out choice eateries in a specific neighborhood or peruse the "Best Of" in a restaurant category."
When they claim to pick the top 100 restaurants in each of the 50 cities they aren’t kidding. While YOUR top 100 may not be MY top 100, scanning through the selection from Manhattan with my wife (a true "foodie" she) all of our personal favorites are there- from the Four Seasons, to Ess-a-Bagel, from Jean Georges to Cafe des Artistes. Heck, they even included Gray’s Papaya! In all, they did an excellent selection job. Why? Because according to LocalEats(TM) editorial director Pat Embry,
Rather than relying on online polls or user-generated ratings, we trust the opinions and research of our hardy band of certified foodies. We love food and take pride in helping people find little-known neighborhood legends. And with LocalEats(TM), we’ve now made the process of finding the country’s best restaurants even easier.
All of that, however, is available in any restaurant guide, electronic or not. Once you pick the restaurant you want, however, the iPhone’s magic takes over.
Take, for example, one of our favorites, Four Seasons. On the main page listing all 100 restaurants in Manhattan there is all the most important information- type of cuisine, address and phone number. Taping on the image brings you to the details page. Here you find all that information plus a rating from 1-5 stars and a picture of the restaurant. A list of what meals are offered, a price range and and special features and services is there, as well.
Best of all, there are three tabs in the center of the iPhone’s screen. One takes you directly to the restaurant’s website, another places a call to them (for reservations obviously) and the third brings up the Maps program and plots directions from your current location to the restaurant. (And unlike the BlackBook Guide, the gps functionality on my iPhone 3G is right on. I am in the mountains of PA this weekend and it accurately gave me directions to Legal Seafood in Boston, the Four Seasons in Manhattan and Le Village Buffet in Las Vegas’ Paris Hotel.)
This is one app that lives up to the developer’s description. At just $.99 it is a bargain!
Quick Take
Value: Very High
Would I Buy Again: In a heartbeat
Learning Curve: Minimal
Who is it for: Anyone who is looking to eat out in one of the USA’s top 50 cities
What I like: Ease of use, detail of list, method for picking restaurants, integration with iPhone’s gps, web and phone.
What I Don’t: Nothing
Final Statement: This is a superb example of an app that takes old concepts (food guides) combines them with new technology (iPhone 3G) and creates something truly useful. At $.99 it is well worth having on your iPhone.
Application features:
— Best 100 restaurants in largest 50 U.S. cities
— Quickly see “What’s near me” (using GPS)
— Find restaurants near a particular address
— Listing by alpha, by category, by best ofs, and in select cities listing by neighborhoods
— Driving directions
— Detailed descriptions
— Quickly view local area map
— No chain restaurants (with a few notable exceptions)
The 50 U.S. Cities: Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Birmingham, Boston, Buffalo, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Louisville, Memphis, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Oakland, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, Rochester, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Washington D.C.
The Cities with neighborhood restaurant listings:Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and more added soon! O U R T A K E . . .
