Menuism.com is a Chicago-focused website where diners can “rate what they ate” in a Web 2.0-style, community-driven site. WindyBits sat down at Harmony Grill in Lakeview to enjoy a hearty dinner, a few beers, and a good conversation with Menuism’s founders, Justin Chen and John Li.

Focused on User-Focused Focus

For starters, Justin and John aren’t professional restaurant reviewers, and that’s the point: Menuism lives and breathes user-generated content. It’s not a soapbox for “professional” reviewers who turn up their noses at greasy pizza. The strong emphasis on users’ dinner stories means that the site is structured around the reviewers (users) as well as the reviewed (restaurants). Once you find someone else in your city with similar tastes, it’s easy to browse his/her commentary and locate other good spots.

Rate What You Ate

The second differentiator of Menuism is the focus on the food. How many times have you read a review along the lines of, “The pad thai was great but the service was horrible?”

WindyBits gets pad thai to go. We don’t care that the waitress at the place forgot to bring some jerk his lemonade–we just care about the noodles. Menuism asks its users to rate both the experience (restaurant location, ambiance, service, etc.) as well as the specific dishes consumed, preventing the entire review from being “spoiled” by a waitress mishap.

What’s the best burger in Chicago?

Here’s an exercise for ya. Cruise over to Metromix and try to answer the question, “Who’s got the best burger in Chicago?” It’s not easy. Sure, you’ll find burger joints, but how do you know where the best burger’s to be found?

Menuism wants to answer that question. As they expand their library of user reviews, they’ll be able to recommend sushi in San Francisco and french fries in Philly, drawing on the collective experience of many users at many restaurants in a single city.

The other users: restaurant owners

After the second beer or so, the Menuism men mentioned something that really surprised us: the skeptical attitude of restaurateurs to the Web. We figured every schmuck with a diner would be dying to have his place reviewed. Not so. Attitudes of owners fall into two general categories: (a) take down the [negative] review of my site, or (b) what can you do for me? Not exactly a proactive bunch. Still, a few owners are waking up to the positive possibilities of the Web.

In response, Menuism wants to turn owner apprehension to its advantage. John and Justin are examining ways to provide restaurant owners with effective means of responding to negative reviews. Recognizing that review sites in general tend to attract extremes–”I loved it” or “I hated it” but not much in between–Menuism is looking to provide restaurants a voice alongside users. They’ve also taken pains to add a “trust factor” to reviews, similar to eBay transaction history. Users must be registered with Menuism to write a review, and existing users can “tip” (give points to) other reviewers, allowing established and influential users to separate themselves from the unwashed masses.

Seattle v. Chicago (v. the Valley)

Since WindyBits is here to cover the Chicago tech scene, we asked Justin (who lives in Chicago) and John (who lives in Seattle) to compare the tech scenes of each to Silicon Valley. They stressed that Chicago is about practicality; you can’t go to a tech gathering and expect your “myspace for grandmothers” idea to be taken seriously. They also appreciate that Chicago has less hype.

Since they do this for a living–or allow others to, anyway–we asked for some recommendations of restaurants. For Chicago fare, Justin pointed us to Charlie Trotter’s (save your pennies) and Ma & I, a thai place in the South Loop. John suggested your Seattle swing include Metropolitan Grill and Dixie’s BBQ. According to the Menuism guys, food in Chicago is richer, heavier, and has more meat, while Seattle focuses on “fusion” and healthier, Asian-influenced fare. We can’t explain why Chicago Justin picked a thai place and Seattle John picked an old school steakhouse. Maybe they should switch apartments!

Our Menuism buddies also told us that Washington and California aren’t big on BYOB. Seriously, we let these states into the Union? I don’t know about you, but we’re gonna stick with Chicago.

If you’d like to hear more from John and Justin, check out the video interview by Technology Evangelist at TECH cocktail 2. Keep in mind that TECH cocktail has an open bar and the interview was conducted at the end of the event. Justin doesn’t slur that much normally. (He does smile a lot, though.)

Food fight!

If Menuism sounds like your cup of tea, check out their monthly Food Fights. In honor of National Pancake Week, celebrated by dozens nationwide, Menuism’s February Food Fight focuses on flapjacks. (Alliteration: conquered!) Critique the current takes on the best pancakes in Chicago and in Seattle. And cruise over to Menuism to tell them about the perfect pancakes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 8th, 2007 at 1:28 am and is filed under Articles. Both comments and pings are currently closed.