eGullet Dining Ambassadors?

[Foodie Moment]

Not sure if this is the forum area for this topic, so please move to someplace more appropriate.

In a discussion about Chang's Momofuku group of restaurants, one of the other eGullet members suggested that if I needed to fill out a reservation of six people (the minimum needed for a particular type of dish), I could call upon him and he would find some friends, for a fee (I'm hoping that was a joke ;-) ).

That got me to thinking... I travel a fair bit on business and frequently find myself in a broad range of cities, mostly in the U.S. And while I dine out a lot on such trips, it's usually by myself, unless I have foodie friends who would appreciate my culinary explorations and adventures as much as I do. And I would guess I am far from the only person that deals with this issue.

And then I stumbled across eGullet last week (actually, I had stumbled across it early, but only joined last week), and it strikes me that perhaps I have a solution to solo foodie dining - meeting up with other eGullet members for memorable meals in interesting places.

So, the questions:

1. Has this already been done?
   
2. Are people here at all interested in dining with fellow foodies they have never met (virtually total strangers)?
   
3. And could this concept be extended to group gatherings of traveling eGullet members and local foodie friends?
   
4. Are there chefs here who would be interesting in hosting such gatherings at their venues?
   

My apologies if these are noob questions and ideas that have been addressed previously (I did a cursory search, but didn't find anything spot on).

Jake

[heidih]

Welcome to the eGullet Society Foodie Moments!

The guidelines for arranging such meet-ups can be found here.

In addition, you may want to check out the topics on the Heartland Gathering: