Food

Entering restaurant data is easy. Just select the Record|New menu item and enter as much of the requested data as you want. In addition to entering a restaurant name and choosing which of the four important features it provides, you also select one or more locations (for chains) and one or more cuisine types. An info field is provided where you can enter an exact address, a phone number, or make notes about dishes you particularly liked or disliked. If you want more space, just attach a note. It also asks you to provide the hours of operation on a day-by-day basis, providing a check box for days when the restaurant is closed. If you use this feature, you will be able to filter out restaurants closed on certain days or at certain times when you look for a restaurant.

I've mentioned the filtering capabilities during restaurant search several times; in my opinion it is the most powerful feature of Food. It's 10PM on a Tuesday night and you must have chinese food and coke with free refills. Just fire up food, check off the coke and refills boxes (assuming you have them), tap the hours button and select Tues and Open Now then Ok, tap foods and select chinese then tap Ok. You should now see a list of all chinese restaurants in your database that serve coke with free refills that are open at 10PM on a Tuesday. Forgot that you are on foot? Tap Where and select Central Square. Restaurants in other locations are removed from the list.

Even if you aren't sure what type of food you feel like, the filtering can be very useful. Just filtering on one item, like delivery, or removing locations that are obviously too far away often makes a big difference. And if you really have no idea where you want to eat, Food can randomly chose for you. Just tap on the Random button and watch the spinning wheel cycle through your database until it finally decides your fate. You can actually see the restaurant names display as the wheel rotates much like watching the values go by on Wheel of Fortune.

I learned my lesson; Food is now a permanent fixture on my Palm. Once you try it you may wonder how you ever lived without it. Best of all, it's free. Gotta love it.

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