Do you keep record of all the places you ate at?

[edawerd]

Hi Everyone,

I've noticed a proliferation of food websites in addition to eGullet, like chowhound, yelp, or citysearch, where people can write and talk about food. I'm curious, do any of you actually keep some sort of journal or record everytime to go out to eat at a restaurant? Heres the reason why I ask: I started working on this website, MyGrub.net, and I'm trying to get a feel of if there even would be interest in something like this.

I'd appreciate your opinions!

[DTBarton]

I don't write anything down really. If I'm impressed by a place, I usually remember it. If I'm not, down the memory hole it goes!

[Kim Shook]

I actually do try to do this. I keep a kind of food journal with meals I serve including guests, menus, photos and how things went as far as the food - I almost always try out new recipes on guests and beg them to be honest - I figure the worst that can happen is we have to order pizza !

Also in the journal is a record of meals eaten in restaurants - again with menus, photos and critiques. Only special or travel meals - I don't bother noting an after work stop at Cracker Barrel (one of my many guilty pleasures )!

Kim

[edawerd]

Thanks for the response! Hmm... judging from the traffic to my site, it doesn't seem that too many people are interested in an online journal about food.

Eddie

[prasantrin]

There are a lot of people who already keep online journals of their food experiences. They don't necessarily post every meal, which is a good thing, in my opinion. I read the ones that interest me, when I remember, but it's not something I search out.

As for keeping my own food journal, it's not something I'm interested in.

[budrichard]

I eat at nice retaurants, I fly fish, hunt and enjoy many activities. I keep no journal for any of them as some do. I prefer my memories be kept in my mind and my time spent on the fish or whatever, besides who wants to read this stuff. Now if I could write like Hemingway, maybe.-Dick

[LittleChef22]

No, but I think this is a good idea. More people that are objective need to go on citysearch to voice their opinion.

[SundaySous]

I met a consultant that would write notes on the backs of credit card receipts. I always thought that was pretty clever. He was telling us about being audited and spending something like a 1/2 hour talking about restaurants he and the auditor had been to.

[pennylane]

Your site looks like a good place to go to read reviews of restaurants. Perhaps it doesn't get much traffic because not a lot of people know about it?

[marvelous_marvin]

I don't keep a journal, but I almost always ask for a card. If I had something particularly memorable, I'll write it on the card somewhere. I have a drawer almost full of these things, and I'm really not sure what to do with them.

But, if I'm ever in Cordoba, Spain, I know exactly where to go for pollo a la miel con tomate.

[LittleChef22]

I need to start doing that b/c I always forget which ones I really enjoyed. I was thinking about starting a little blog about restaurants and doing some restaurant reviews for all the places I've been.

[druz99]

I am one of those freaks who loves taking pictures of their food and writing detailed descriptions of my meal, so yes, I do keep track of where I ate! MyGrub is an interesting site, similar concept to Gobbl, which provides a simple and elegant food-blogging platform, except that Gobbl is for New York. Feel free to check out I like to Eats, my Gobbl blog where I keep track of all my dining experiences!

[MaxH]

I keep business cards, sometimes menus or supplemental notes. Doing it for 35 years. Posting occasional restaurant recommendations on the Internet since the middle 1980s (when it was less popular, but starting to be accessible to the public and already had passionate and knowledgeable food-loving communities).

Food on the Internet has changed rapidly the last few years (it's almost a point of distinction not to write at length on a blog ). To recommend or comment on a restaurant, I look to where the interested readers will be, which varies, and try to put it there. Recently for instance I recommended some restaurants on the venerable SF-area newsgroup since the middle 1980s, ba.food. Newsgroups predate HTML, use broadcast rather than central content storage, and are convenient sometimes to post information if you want to refer to it later, as in the link above.

[Peter Green]

I generally take notes of what and where I eat (Prasantrin/Rona will vouch for this). However, I don't post everything I eat (unless it's a jaunt, like what's going on now).

I find that by paying attention to what I eat, and regurgitating it (so to say) in print, I can nail it down in my memories with better precision, and from there I can enjoy future meals more from the comparisons I carry rattling around in my head.

But that's just the way my brain works (or maybe I watched A Clockwork Orange too many times as a youth?)

[Sprinkles]

I don't unless it's really good then I'll take a business card and will definitely return. I'm a person who would repeatedly return to a restaurant if it's really good.