A Smorgasbord of Dining Options on the Web

Whether your notion of road food runs to truck-stop chicken and dumplings or poulet provencal at a Manhattan bistro, the Web offers a smorgasbord of recommendations and listings of places to chow down on vacation.

The latest entry: Zagat Survey, which started two decades ago as a mimeographed tip sheet and evolved into a series of tersely written, best-selling restaurant guides. Though many of Zagat’s reviews already had been incorporated into Web-based destination guides, the company’s recently overhauled site (https://www.zagat.com) gives travelers one-stop access to ratings of nearly 17,000 restaurants in London, Paris and 18 U.S. states or metropolitan areas. The most extensive information, including actual reviews, maps and driving instructions and the ability to vote online for a favorite eatery, is reserved for those who complete a free registration form; more than 30,000 foodies have done just that since the site was launched last month. Users can search for possibilities by such criteria as price, neighborhood, type of cuisine and ratings.

The site’s creators, Tim and Nina Zagat, insist it won’t cannibalize sales of their $10 burgundy-hued guides, and registered users even get a 25% discount at Zagat’s online store. One advantage of the digital version: Restaurant listings will be added and updated every few months.

Here’s a sampling of other sites that will help you sniff out a great place to eat. But be aware that though many sites incorporate comments from independent reviews or customers, other “reviews” may be paid advertising that isn’t marked as such.

* For possibilities outside major metropolitan areas, start with a major search engine or directory site like Yahoo (https://www.yahoo.com). A Yahoo search for “Madison and Wisconsin and restaurants,” for example, turned up dozens of individual restaurants from A&W; to Wonder’s Pub, plus the more comprehensive Madison Dining Online Guide (https://www.madisondining.com).

* Even if you’re too young to remember the neon “Eat Here” signs that once sprouted along the country’s two-lane highways, Eat Here: The Online Traveler’s Guide to Road Food (https://www.eathere.com) is guaranteed to spark an appetite for Big Mac alternatives. The site highlights regional specialties, recipes and more than 550 roadside diners and restaurants in the U.S. and Canada.

* Excite’s snazzy Restaurant Review Finder (https://www.city.net) combs the Web for reviews of top restaurants in 31 U.S. metropolitan areas. You can search by price range, name of restaurant or type of cuisine, or browse from an alphabetical list. Click on the name of the restaurant and you’ll be linked to the applicable review from such Internet resources as Fodor’s Restaurant Index (https://www.fodors.com/ri.cgi), Dinner and a Movie.com (https://www.dinnerandamovie.com) and CuisineNet (https://www.cuisinenet.com), which recently merged with another major player, DineNet Menus Online (https://www.menusonline.com).

* City guides such as Sidewalk (https://www.sidewalk.com), CitySearch (https://www.citysearch.com) and Digital City (https://www.digitalcity.com) are aimed at locals, but their dining sections can be equally useful to out-of-towners. Beware, however, that some listings are just that: name and contact information, with no descriptions or evaluations.

* Conde Nast’s Epicurious site (https://www.food.epicurious.com and https://www.travel.epicurious.com) offers several possibilities, including the James Beard Foundation’s Chef Finder, Gourmet’s reader restaurant poll and a new restaurant “Hot List” that showcases 50 establishments exhibiting what Conde Nast Traveler’s editor calls “a confluence of flair, innovation and character.”

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