Monday, February 22, 2010
Bites / Travel Advisory Chowhound Tweaks Southern Content
Posted by Nicki Wood on Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 8:55 AM
Chowhound.com, friend of the traveling food lover, always had a slightly weak spot: the overly general "South" board.
As a catchall for non-Atlanta, non-New Orleans restaurants, it worked pretty well in the early days. As the boards got busier, the topics piled up fast. Because the South, from Virginia to Louisiana, is a pretty big chunk of real estate.
Recently, Chowhound divided the South into thinner slices of territory. (See the new zones listed below:)
The divisions make it a little easier to find the answer to your question, or answer questions, without wading through dozens of posts on the Carolinas.
With Chowhound, my involvement waxes and wanes. When I use the boards to get advice, I try to spend time answering others' questions to "pay back" to the community. It's been a long time since my last reply, but today there was a question on Monteagle eateries -- a pretty unusual query, as it's not exactly a stop on everyone's itinerary.
Do Bites readers use chowhound.com, and if so, do you reply as well as ask? Has Yelp superceded Chowhound as the go-to site for advice, or does it strike anyone else as more thickly populated by inexperienced diners than chowhound? Where else do you turn for food recommendations on the road?
Comments (5)
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I use Chowhound all the time when traveling. It's usually spot on and it doesn't seem to be overrun with restaurants that have written their own reviews/feedback. The snarkiness factor is also relatively low, compared to other sites.
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I use it too - though everyone on it is such a bitch it's impossible to get a consensus...as soon as someone says something positive about a place, there's someone to disagree, but la la la welcome to the internet. I spent a half-hour last night trying to figure out the best oyster joint in Gulf Shores for a trip next week but ended up back at square one because no one agrees with anyone else.
I don't use it much because my traveling has been slim since I started visiting. I answer questions or join discussions occasionally. I admit I'm not really overly fond of the attitudes of some posters. A lot of Nashville posts seem to exist just for the purpose of bemoaning the fact that Nashville doesn't have what the poster is used to having in Jersey/SanFran/Chicago/NY/whatever, or people who are only interested in BBQ or meat-and-three. Chowhound is also overrun with reverse snobbery -- the more obscure and downmarket an eatery, the better in their book.
I have had good luck with wherethelocalseat.com and specifically they have a local blogger section. I look at a few of those blogs and then try to email one of the bloggers. They are usually pretty excited that someone looked them up and that someone wants their opinion of the local food scene.
I used to log on to chowhound several times a week, responding to questions about Nashville as well as using it for my own personal travel planning. Over the past year I haven't been getting on there quite so frequently. That may be because I spend too much time on here, twitter, reading all my favorite blogs, and writing my own blog!
