Top Six Restaurant Sites

Chowhound (www.chowhound.com) – An obsessive community of foodies who share secret finds around the world.

Eats (www.Eats.com) — A restaurant-oriented social network launched in April, 2008. Includes detailed information on more than 40,000 restaurants in 125 cities. Members can review or request dining recommendations. Membership is free.

Menupages (www.menupages.com) – Menupages makes it easy to scout restaurants by neighborhood, cuisine, price, individual food items, and even whether a place is open all night. For now, the extensive database (25,000 restaurants) covers eight cities: Manhattan, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, and South Florida. Check out the restaurant blogs for each city.

OpenTable (www.OpenTable.com) — More high-quality restaurants have joined the site’s dining-incentive reservation program. The Wall Street Journal reports that, in a reflection of the economy, many A-list restaurants with hard-to-get reservations are now opening the doors a little wider.

UrbanSpoon (www.urbanspoon.com) – Less than two years old, Urbanspoon covers the restaurant scene with professional and amateur reviews in more than two dozen major US metro areas. Users can slice-and-dice the data by neighborhood, cuisine, price, and whether a restaurant is romantic, vegan, kid-friendly, or even gluten-free. More than a quarter-million hits a month.

Yelp (www.Yelp.com) – Online city restaurant guide made up of real reviews from real people. Covers more than two dozen major US cities. Supports a mobile database for smartphone users.