Urbanspoon, Vancouver's New Food Authority

I was passed along a link recently (via del.icio.us) for Urbanspoon, a massive website network of restaurants and food reviews from around the world.

Urbanspoon is the world’s leading provider of time-critical dining data, a major division of a very important multi-national corporation, and an all-around BIG PLAYER in the multi-billion dollar restaurant information industry. Read more about us on the Urbanspoon Blog. [About – Urban Spoon]

This month they expanded to covering 14 cities around North America and Vancouver made the cut.

They’ve been able to list almost 2,500 restaurants and eateries of over 60 different varieties in 32 neighbourhoods. Wow, and I thought I was on top of things with my little patio guide. It’s pretty amazing. They have a blog, polls, cute little “I like it” and “I don’t like it” quick review buttons, links to reviews by other sources, accounts so you can track your favourites and make recommendations, and of course there are plenty of interactive Google Maps. Oh, and did I mention they also have a Facebook app? Yup.

Want to go someplace neat for brunch tomorrow?

Screenshot of Urban Spoon – Vancouver – Brunch

You can then sort through by location or price, and if you don’t see something you love (or hate) on there already you can easily submit a new entry. Also, if you have reviewed a restaurant before on your blog, they would like to add you to their site. Your submitted blog post will then show up under the restaurant’s profile. You can also add a button to your post and it will all link up through their “Spoonback” system (see my post about So.cial Butcher Shop and Deli)

I’ve only had a little time to run through the site but from what I see so far, I am thoroughly impressed, kinda floored actually. Now I just have to go through all of my post archives, weed out my restaurant reviews and submit… if any of them are worthy.

If you have a del.icio.us account and would like to bookmark a story for my attention just tag it “for:Miss604” and I’ll pick it up.

Update: Two of my restaurant reviews that I could find pretty easily last night have now been linked on Urbanspoon. My blog is now listed as a source and it even has its own profile page on Urbanspoon, listing all of my posted/personal reviews as well.

They also provide the code to copy/paste a badge for your blog’s sidebar, noting your blog’s name and a link to restaurant reviews you have made.