Urban Spoon

I don't get to use the Urban Spoon app much in Moscow. With a handful of restaurants in a given category, most of them Mexican, there just isn't a whole lot of culinary depth to be plumbed. On our recent trip to Annapolis, D.C. and Baltimore, respectively, I got to try some practical applications.

Thing is, I think I am Urban Spoon incompatible. Yes, it pulls up a bevy of nearby restaurants; yes, you can sort by neighborhood, cuisine, and price; and yes, you can read reviews. In a metropolitan area there are too many restaurants to easily sort through, too many dated reviews, and it is too hard to find a restaurant when you don't have specific neighborhood or cuisine hankerings - you know, when you just want something good.

We were booking for parties of six, typically, and each meal needed to be something special. If I were a local and just looking for a random eatery decision in a pinch, Urban Spoon might be a fun magic eight ball approach to the matter, even if I had been on slightly more familiar ground, like Seattle; but the reality is that when traveling in an unfamiliar city and booking meals for myself, family and friends I am way too particular for the level of variables Urban Spoon dishes up.

On the upside, Urban Spoon made it dead easy for me to make multiple reservations - and then cancel them.