"restaurant review" news and stories

Strolling through a casino, especially a newer one like the Tropicana in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is always fun. You can admire the architecture, shop in cute but overpriced stores and people-watch to your heart's content. The two other major attractions of casinos are, of course, gambling and eating. I'm not too lucky when it comes to the slots, but I lucked out by picking Cuba Libre for brunch.

Now, there are many restaurants around the country that share the name, but this particular restaurant has but two locations, in Atlantic City and Philadelphia. I hear that the Philly location has dancing, but the Atlantic City one serves brunch seven days a week. The brunch menu is packed with options, but isn't overwhelming. The black bean hummus is excellent and the plantain chips are a nice touch with the tasty sandwiches.

If you do any sort of research before you go out dining about town, then you're probably familar with Chowhound, a collection of messageboards focused on various geographical regions with thousands of users who read and contribute opinions about food and restaurants.

Well! The Alpha Hound himself, Jim Leff, has announced that CNET has agreed to purchase Chowhound and will be rebuilding the online chow community on new software and giving it a badly-needed facelift. Just how soon it'll all go down isn't clear, but thank God. If you've actually used the messageboards, whether to find out information about the "must order" or "stay away from" items of a menu, or to contribute or own $0.02 about horrible service at the newest joint on the corner, then you know that the site is an atrocity from a user's perspective, still maintaininng an all text, 1980s bulletin board look and feel without even a simple search functionality.

LA blogger, Professor Salt, has posted an interview he did with Jim Leff, in which the founder answers some questions about the deal.