10 best smartphone apps for food enthusiasts

by Jessica Festa on

Nowadays, there is a smartphone application for anything and everything. Food enthusiasts, wine connisseurs, and beer buffs will love these 10 handy smartphone applications. From beer and meal pairing to restaurant finding to where to eat that spicy burger that Adam Richman inhaled on Man vs. Food last night, there’s an app here for you.

TruxMap

With food trucks being such a popular trend, it’s only right to include a smartphone app that caters to it. This application includes a real time gourmet food truck map for many major cities in the United States, including New York, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Las Vegas and more. Once you download the app, you will first select a city. From there, you will be taken to a map that will show you where food trucks are open at that moment as well as locations that food trucks will be opening soon. Menus, food photos, directions, and the chance to submit your own reviews are other features of this app.

Available on iPhone and Android. Free.
Epicurious

Food lovers will enjoy using this app to search, browse, save, and e-mail over 30,000 recipes in their database as well as create shopping lists. Search for ingredients and browse through categories, such as healthy lunches or party snacks, to find exactly what you’re looking for.

Available on iPhone and Android. Free.

Zagat

Zagat is a well-known, trusted source in the world of restaurant recommendations, and their smartphone app brings this and more. While users will be able to browse over 30,000 restaurants to read reviews and ratings, there are other features to this app, as well. GPS allows for the ability to find nearby eateries, while their visual menus give people the chance to actually see photos of what they will be eating. Top Rated Lists, such as Best Burgers and Most Romantic, and the chance to write your own reviews are also available on this app.

Available on iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. $9.99 annually.

OpenTable

This is a great app for those who want to be able to find specific restaurants in their location but don’t want to pay a yearly fee for a smartphone app. OpenTable allows users to search restaurants by name or category, make reservations, view restaurant menus, get directions, and view interactive maps. You can even earn dining points that can be used to earn Dining Cheques for when eating at OpenTable restaurants.

Available on iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. Free.

Cor.kz

Wine connoisseurs will love this app, which gives users instant access to information on over 1,000,000 bottles of wine. All you have to do is type in the name of a bottle of wine or scan its barcode and the app will supply you with over 2,000,000 ratings and notes on the blend from wine experts. Other features include browsing by region or varietals, seeing Cor.kz staff wine picks, learning popular glossary terms on wine, and a “Daily Sip” magazine column.

Available on iPhone. $2.99.

Beer Hero

Brew lovers out there now have a smartphone app that caters specifically to what they love best, beer! This app not only allows users to read rankings of over 1,000 microbrews across the United States and find local brewpubs, it also helps you pair which food will go best with your beer of choice, and will tell you where nearby you can enjoy this perfect combination.

Available on iPhone ($1.99) and Android ($2.99).

Seafood Watch

This smartphone app was designed by the Montery Bay Aquarium in Montery, California, in order to help users find “up-to-date recommendations for ocean-friendly seafood and sushi”. Read reviews and ratings from others as well as post your own. Other features of this eco-friendly app include information on how different menu items should be fished or farmed, health guides, and GPS integration to allow for pertinent regional guides for users.

Available on iPhone and Android. Free.

TVFoodMaps

The Travel Channel and Food Network come to together in this app to help users find the restaurants and eateries they see on their favorite TV shows, such as Man vs. Food, Best Thing I Ever Ate, Drive-Ins and Dives, and more. Find restaurants nearby, read reviews, get directions, and, when available, watch TV clips from the restaurant on YouTube.

Available on iPhone and Android. Free.

Tipping Bird

It can often be confusing knowing when to tip and how much when traveling. This app takes care of that for you by allowing users to choose the region they are in and get recommendations from the app on what the tipping etiquette is for different situations, including restaurants, bars, hotels, taxis, and travel tours. This app will also convert your home currency to the currency of your destination and calculate the tip for you. No thinking involved.

Available on Android. Free.

MyFitnessPal

For those who love food, this smartphone app makes it easy to indulge without going overboard. The app has a database of over 1,185,000 foods and restaurants to search nutrition facts, and allows you to log what you’ve eaten as well as your exercise for the day.

Available on iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. Free.

Smartphone app reveals new mysteries in Stonehenge landscape

by Sean McLachlan on


Recent excavations around Stonehenge have shown that the famous monument didn’t stand alone in the landscape; it was part of a network of monuments that developed over time.

One of the most enigmatic is Bluestonehenge, a mile away from Stonehenge and only excavated a few years ago. It was a stone circle much like Stonehenge, although now all that remains are the holes where the stones were placed around 3000 BC. Fragments of rock in the holes show the stones were originally bluestones, imported from Wales and also used for the inner circle of Stonehenge. In fact, some archaeologists believe they were removed from Bluestonehenge and incorporated into Stonehenge around 2500 BC.

Now a new analysis using a smartphone app (of all things!) indicates that Bluestonehenge might have originally been an oval. Past Horizons reports that archaeologist Henry Rothwell was working on a smartphone app about the Stonehenge landscape when he noticed something strange about the known holes of Bluestonehenge and those that hadn’t yet been uncovered. When he made a reconstruction of the site using the existing holes, they didn’t form a neat circle, but rather an oval.

In fact this oval is the same orientation and shape as Stonehenge and another site in the area–Woodhenge. Both Stonehenge and Woodhenge are aligned on the mid-summer and mid-winter solstices, and if Rothwell’s reconstruction is correct, then Bluestonehenge is as well. This makes a whole network of monumental sites stretching across centuries of history, all aligned to work as prehistoric calendars.

[Photo courtesy Steve Walker]

Pack like a pro with new travel apps

by Chris Owen on

There are a bunch of packing lists out there which can be helpful for those who do not travel all that much or serve as a checklist for those that do. But those “lists” require having a computer handy or carrying around a paper list like in the olden days before we all went green and stopped printing things. Here are some new apps that can help us pack like a pro.

Saving Grace Travel Packing Aid – Recently released by Grace Hotels, this app is a packing checklist and reminder tool all in one. Designed to cut the stress out of packing for any vacation, Saving Grace has customized lists for different trip types and activities that can be individually personalized. I like this one because it’s great to have when time runs short right before travel and things have got to be done. The Cost: $0
International Style App – Have your packing lists ready but not sure which outfits to choose from your wardrobe? FashionFreax app will assist you in your styling woes by supplying you with posts of stylish outfits from around the world. This is great for fashionista’s and cross-dressers. Good ‘ol boys from the land of “whatever I have on will be fine” or minimalist packers would never use it. I plan on gifting it to my wife before our next cruise when she says “Help me pack.” Like the whole idea of this? See (loosely) related video Cost:$0

Luggage Tracking App – Avoid accidentally leaving your belongings in the cab or at the airport with the All My Baggage App. With this app, users can quickly and easily manage and check their list of luggage and carry-ons. This one is in lieu of tying a string around your finger or sticking a post-it on your forehead after checking luggage to remember how many bags you have. Supplemental idea: Use that smart phone to take a photo of your luggage all lined up at home before you leave. Later, match photo to bags in hand, compare, note differences. Cost: $0

Flickr photo by twicepix

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