The first taste of a world of choices

Restaurant reviews. As I read those words, images arose of Ruth Reichl's simple but informative reviews. However, as to how that would mix with the web medium, I had no idea. So I dove in.

Three tabs, three approaches. First off my sight was bombarded with yelp.com. Inside I screamed and quickly moved on--the mess of links and content overwhelmed me--it looked complex and unintuitive. Next to appear was atlantafoodies.blogspot.com. Immediately I saw MARTA's distinct logo, and the words "five points free", and my attention was caught. Being a college student and a somewhat frugal person, living off of free food is not a far fetched idea--from free Pizza at 6:30pm at a church across from my dorm to my Unlimited meal plan, I have a strong distaste for spending money for food when I can so easily get by without that expense. I'm always open for variety.

Next, I notice that atlantafoodies has a fairly simplistic design--much more so than yelp.com, as it is a blog instead of a full-fledged website. I move on, somewhat reluctantly, to tastingmenu.com--and am immediately drawn to their blog, as it is very tastefully designed, with easy access to restaurant reviews through a large link on the top of the page. However, tastingmenu does not have a large database--in fact, they only have a smattering of cities, and Atlanta was not one of them. This is why huge databases such as yelp.com are, despite their uninviting layout, are much more powerful--despite being based on user reviews, yelp is a very useful website. I tried out their search engine, typing in "cheap" near Atlanta, and was quickly greeted by the first 10 of over 3000 results--along with a map of the top ten, showing me how close they were to my location. The first on the list was Eats, a restaurant in Midtown labeled Southern, Italian, and Caribbean!! There is an amazing Review Highlights section which displays the best choices on the menu, as calculated by the website. Browsing the reviews, I was able to find a variety of information about the restaurant--including that it is not in the best section of town, but that for the price it was very decent!

Despite my initial reaction to the free MARTA and McDonalds on Atlanta Foodies, I found it less useful the more I looked. The blog, which is the main part of the site, is infrequently updated, with the time lapse between the current post and the previous one being over a month. They had so many links to other sites that I didn't quite know where to start--though if I had a specific restaurant I wanted information on, I possibly would be able to find more information about it through searching for a review.

First impressions aren't always true. A well designed layout cannot cover the fact that atlantafoodies and tastingmenu were merely blogs and didn't have as much content to offer. One can give yelp some leeway for their layout due to the enormous quantity of information they need to be accessible. Despite my initial revulsion of Yelp.com, I definitely will be back.