Besides review sites, how does technology help you find or enjoy a meal? Here are some tips I use:
Google has histogram for each restaurant showing when customers most frequently dine there. It’s good for knowing when to avoid crowds.
GPS tags on photos are great. Can’t remember where that hole in the wall was, but have a picture on your smartphone? The GPS tag can show you where it was. Trying to remember when or what you ate the last time you were at a place? On an iPhone at least, you can pull up all photos taken at that location. You can also pull up a city or neighborhood and browse through the photos you took there.
that way your fellow patrons won’t be spoiling your experience with constant phone activity in their outside voice, plus - the waitstaff will be more focused on their jobs vs. their Facebook page.
Just wing it . Walk through glance down of what the patrons are eating . How does the food look . Order something off the menu . If I don’t like it I won’t be back . Strike out or a home run .
Google Translate, pointed out by @Presunto here. Combines OCR and translate in one app. for some languages it even translates in real time, as in you point the camera phone at the text, and the screen shows the translation in real time. Super helpful and quick to get some idea if one has no idea what the menu says.
Below is a menu in french. Besides Google suggesting that Robuchon is serving up expensive mutilated ass, it does a decent job considering how effortless the translation is.
