Menu Pages

There comes a time in every Web-based resource's life when it either becomes useful or it doesn't. I think the menu site, menupages.com, is reaching the point where it is a genuine resource.

I have used the site's NYC search with good success before, but always considered the Chicago options thin. It seems they are now getting good participation from many corners of the city, yeilding some nice ReneG-reads-the-Yellowpages type results.

As an experiment, I looked at possibly the most enigmatic and intimidating restaurant in Chicago, the ominously named Chicago by Night. CBN is a Bulgarian place featuring hot cocktail waitresses and icy stares from the Bulgarian dudes that hang around the tavern, smoking and eating. I was drawn there a year or two ago based on a crazy-ass leaflet left in a cab that I happened to hail. The glossy half-sheet looked like something you'd step on in Vegas and portrayed an extremely happy-looking (in a way) place.

I have, essentially, no sense and no fear when it comes to public dining establishements, and who should, really. But this place tested my limits. The stares of patrons combined with my apparent invisibility to the staff sent me back to the street a few minutes later. Now, with the help of menupages, I can draw back the curtain on the truly massive and quite interesting combination of Bulgarian, Turkish, Polish and American bar food at Chicago by Night. They have your offal, for sure.

Possibly the best feature? Use the food search function, enter "Shkembe Chorba" for the Northwest Side, and you get a hit on CBN!

Throw in "Shakshuka" under North Side and you'll get Tel Aviv Kosher Pizza (which, by the way, has a huge non-pizza menu).

Anyway, this will help, no doubt, as we look for particular foods.

PS, don't be fooled by the completely inadequate listing of places by ethnicity. menupages shows a scant handful of Indian or Pakistani places, but if you do a food search for "frontier," for example, just about every cabbie-kebab place (on Devon, but not Orleans) pops up.

I am a fan of this site as well. The only negative is that the menus are not always updated.

ChefGEB wrote:I am a fan of this site as well. The only negative is that the menus are not always updated.

And that would include your own menu, as well?

(By the way, Mrs. JiLS and I had a wonderful early (5:30 seating) dinner at Avenues Friday evening, at which we enjoyed the Chef's Palate.)

I agree that menupages.com is amazingly useful, precisely because it includes so many of the small ethnic places in out of the way neighborhoods. But one complaint I have about it (aside from not being able to link easily to the menu itself) is the absurd amount of typos in the menus, at least the Spanish language items. On the menu for Casa de Samuel, for example, cecina comes out "cochina", refrescos are "refeseos", queso fundido is written "queso handido", ceviche is "coniche" ... there are many more. A combination of poor-quality scanner and uninformed proof reading, I suppose.

I love that site and use it all the time when I'm trying to figure out where to go or what to get delivered!

I find it particularly useful when a restaurant's website doesn't have prices listed on their online menu. Although, at places like that, you can generally guess.

It's also useful to get an idea for the rest of the menu at a restaurant LTHers recommend for just a few items. e.g. what, besides burgers, shakes and fries, Top Notch sells.

As a dining in a digital age aside, I'll relate that I've been briefly playing with Local Search on VZ Navigator with my super sexy Chocolate phone . The service can triangulate my (pretty much) exact location, and than offer me some 40+ dining category choices. They are then displayed roughly from closest to farthest. The phone can than speak to you in a soothing voice and lead you alluringly there.

I've tested it a couple times and each time shown signs of brilliance and retardation. More to tell ...

-ramon