"yelp" news and stories

Yelp helps you find a restaurant but doesn't let you book. OpenTable allows you to make reservations at a restaurant but doesn't make any recommendations or suggestions.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Why don't these two kids get together and make some magic for us to macerate.

Good news they have. According to an article in the New York Times, Yelp and OpenTable are joining forces for the power of good dining. Find a restaurant you want to go to through Yelp and make the reservation right there through Open Table using your Yelp account. You no longer have to use your OpenTable account just your Yelp one.

Time was, restaurateurs kept their eyes out for the local food critics, the ones who could make or break their reputation with a few well-chosen words in the next day's newspaper.

Today, restaurateurs still have critic anxiety. The difference is, everyone's a critic -- and the criticism is taking place online, reports the Boston Globe. Sites like Yelp and Chowhound have democratized the world of criticism, with lay foodies striking fear into the hearts of restaurant owners. After all, a few quick keystrokes at the computer or on the smartphone can create lasting damage if the writer shares a negative experience.

Just as social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare have shown an explosion in usage over the past few years, so have review sites -- enough so that they're becoming a force in restaurant culture, reports the San Francisco Business Times. Six-year-old Yelp, for example, has grown by more than a third in just a year, and now has more than 10 million reviews in its database -- meaning nary a restaurant can escape its reaches any longer.

By Pervaiz Shallwani
We're big proponents of buying local when possible and just spied some curious data about 5,500 iPhone users buying a $3 Locavore app (created by a Slashfood friend) in a mere month. It tells iPhone addicts what's in season, what's en route and where nearby farmers' markets are located.

Whoa. We wondered what other yummy things we could do if we got with the times and finally embraced an iPhone for our foodie needs. Boy, were we shocked. There are hundreds of free and paid downloads including one for beer, one for soda and a fast-food meal calorie counter.

Not only are food nerd darlings Serious Eats, Food Network and Yelp at our fingertips, so is the FDA with food recall news (though their freebie Twitter also works), a guide to finding cheap or free kids' meals at nearby eateries and Twecipe, which matches the dregs of those fridge contents to a recipe.

All this edible ammo available at the touch of a button makes us wonder whether Googling our munching needs is becoming just so 2008 and whether we should cave to the iFeed – er, iPhone -- trend. Have you?

• Yelp is becoming a powerful way for the average person to influence their fellow citizens on everything from restaurants, grocery stores and doctors.
• Chocolate growers in Ecuador are skipping the middleman and making chocolate bars from the cacao they grow and harvest.
• Simon Hopkinson, the author of Roast Chicken and Other Stories (declared the most useful cookbook of all time by fellow British chefs) is at it again with a new book entitled Second Helpings of Roast Chicken.
• One french wine maker is trying to restore the reputation of champagne.
• Frank Bruni reviews Bobo and finds himself wishing that it "was a little less bourgeois and a little more bohemian."
• Brick oven pizza has gone mobile in Brooklyn. Dave Sclarow has constructed his own wood fired oven and with it, a traveling pizza shop called Pizza Moto.
• The Minimalist wraps a piece of white fleshed fish in thinly sliced prosciutto and thus devises a simple way to create an elegant meal.
• Inspired by her grandmother's classic Jewish cooking, Melissa Clark creates a baked apple and barley pilaf dish that is flavored with pork sausage.