Restaurant Menus Available Online for Major American Cities

by Neil Woodburn on

You know the drill. You’re in a strange city, someone gives you a restaurant recommendation, but when you get there, there is nothing on the menu that looks interesting to you.

Well, a new website plans to alleviate that culinary nightmare. MenuPages.com is a database of thousands of menus covering restaurants in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, and South Florida.

The site is organized by regions and cuisines. Simply find the restaurant that’s been recommended and click on the online menu or download the printable PDF file.

The listings are long and impressive–pretty much every restaurant I searched for in Los Angeles popped up. The one disappointment is the rather lackluster review section. Few of the restaurants feature reader reviews. Hopefully this will change in the future as the site catches on.

The Mütter Museum: Macabre, Morbid, and a Must-See!

by Willy Volk on

Located in the heart of Philadelphia, the Mütter Museum was born in 1858. Designed to educate future doctors about anatomy and human medical anomalies, today the Museum’s collection boasts over 20,000 objects and serves to feed the brains of the public about our medical past. It’s also beautifully disgusting. If you’ve got a strong constitution, then you’ll delight in the unusual pieces on display, like:

  • The plaster cast of the torso of the Siamese Twins, Chang & Eng, and their conjoined livers!
  • Joseph Hyrtl’s collection of skulls!
  • The collection of 2,000 objects extracted from people’s throats!
  • The tallest skeleton on display in North America!

Yeah…this ain’t no ordinary museum — in fact, many people may not be able to stomach it. Can’t make up your mind if this is the destination for you?

Finally, you should have a look at the Virtual Tour of the Museum — just don’t lose your head over the sliced section of human head.

[Photo: Istolethetv]

SoundAboutPhilly’s Awesome Audible Tours/Google Maps Mash-up

by Willy Volk on

Recently, we told you about the [murmur] project, an audio archive of the stories of Toronto. It turns out that SoundAboutPhilly is undertaking a similar project for the City of Brotherly Love. SoundAboutPhilly’s free, customizable sound-seeing tours are told by “real” Philadelphians, and provide an insider’s look at the city. Moreover, since it’s mashed with Google Maps, the site lets you plan an interesting, detailed trip from wherever you are.

Featuring dozens of audio clips, SoundAboutPhilly lets people browse by subject (History, Unplugged Philadelphia, Flavorhoods, My Philly, Philly Noir, Once Upon A Nation, Vintage Philadelphia) and even lets users create and upload their own tours. For example, I just finished listening to Aaron’s Haunted/Eerie Philly tour. (The Mütter Museum sounds creepy!)

SoundAboutPhilly allows you to save your favorite tours (and their associated waypoints), so you can create your own personal audio tour/map of the city. Perfect for that upcoming trip, just download all the portions of your custom Philly trip, print your map, and listen to the tours as you explore. If you go by yourself, just don’t get scared when you reach the Edgar Allan Poe house.

Flying on the Busiest Day of the Year

by Adrienne Wilson on

Philadelphia watch out! I’m going to be famous! Okay, not really famous, but maybe famous for thirty seconds or so… After shuffling off my flight from Tampa, FL, I made way down to baggage claim where I noticed the news folks out and about with their cameras ready to make some news. First they nabbed a mother of one (easy target) and probed her on today’s flying situation. Being a mother of what looked to be a well behaved child I imagine she still had some minor complaints, but that’s just my thinking negatively. Perhaps all went well, maybe TSA didn’t give her any grief – what do I know? Anyhow, almost immediately after I ended my phone call I became prey to Philly’s Channel 6 News crew.

First they kindly asked for my name which I thought Adrienne was enough, but apparently the full government name was in need so I disclosed my last name, but only after requesting some I.D. (I kid.) Once the formal introductions were said and done it was time to spill the beans. They asked what flying on the busiest day of the year was like and my summary went something like this:

Adrienne: Um, well flying out of Tampa wasn’t that bad. The security lines were a little longer than any other day, but they were handing out the little plastic baggies and all went smoothly.

News Reporter: (Laughs) So the little baggies helped? Everything was operating well?

Adrienne: Coming out of Tampa, FL I’d say so…

New Reporter: Well that’s great! Thank you for your time.

Exciting stuff, eh? In all honesty that’s the way things went for me this morning. I got there a bit early, waited in line, played the dress-up game with security, took out my lap-top and wished all happy holidays. I did without any liquids, gels and other suspicious items this time so I didn’t even need the free plastic baggies they were passing out. Sigh… Now I assume there will be similar stories to mine, but was flying for anyone else pure hell today? In the event you didn’t get interviewed by the local news crew consider this an exclusive opportunity from Gadling to share your comments, rants, complaints or fuzzy feelings about flying during the holidays!

This is Adrienne Wilson reporting from the Philadelphia International Airport.

Teeny Tiny Airport Finds

by Adrienne Wilson on

Normally, I wouldn’t post such a rambling blurb on all the small discoveries to be found in the airport, but sometimes they either really amaze me or really annoy me. On my trip into Philly this past week I had the opportunity to go thru three airports I had never seen before. Surprisingly one of those cities was Philadelphia’s Intl’ Airport and the other two: Detroit and Indianapolis. (Note: Routing like such occurs when you buy a ticket the night before your flight.)

So now, once I passed through TSA and made sure that all my glosses and lipsticks were safely stored in my check-in luggage, I took the little time left to explore these exotic airports. Detroit’s shocked me! I was very impressed with their terminals, tram and the food selection to be sampled on a long layover. What I did not like was hiding in the women’s restroom. Who on Earth thinks that everything automatic and hands-off or free is a good idea? First it was the faucets and now it is the soap. Here are a couple of observations with this automatic-soap-dispensing-business: Either it works or it doesn’t. It’s like once it gets started there’s no stopping it and who knows how much soap was wasted. The same applies for Philadelphia’s restrooms. Am I alone here or does the automatic soap bug anyone else?

On the cooler side of things, I found Indianapolis has neat iPod vending machines. If you haven’t gotten one yet or are in need of accessories you can swipe your card and wa-la! You’ve got yourself a hip piece of modern technology all without having to go through the trouble of purchasing with a human being.

Okay, that went longer than I thought, but if you’ve got any airport finds from anywhere please share. I’m easy to entertain.