Hiya!!

Do you know of a website that provides independant restaurant reviews that I can use to search by area or by type of food??

Cheers
Rach

I use Zagat's as my bible. It's by subscription, but that gives you access to all their directories worldwide. Their search function is excellent, you can set parameters such as cuisine, neighborhood, ratings, costs, etc.

try citysearch.com It says it is independent. And its free. I have had mixed results following it, but on the whole pretty good.

menupages.com

Thanks all!!

Hi,

The reason I like www.menupages.com is that in addition to actually viewing their menu (with prices) you can read reviews from people that have dined there. I was sending someone to a restaurant that I had been to at about 8 months ago. Then I checked out the site and the reviews weren't so good recently. Chefs, staff and sometimes owners change and then it isn't as good as when you were there last. Awfully disapointing to recommend a restaurant and then find out it was a disaster!

New York has tons of great places to eat. Sometimes you just stumble on them - and have a great meal and a great time.

We live on Staten Island. I worked on Wall Street for years, my son went to school on W. 16th Street and then NYU, so we mainly stayed downtown.
For us, there are so many restaurants you want to try....but, if you really enjoyed the one you have been to, you want to go back again.

A restaurant we really liked was Cafe Loupe on W. 13th between 6th & 7th. You do need reservations. I have never looked, I don't even know if they are on "menu pages.com". Next door is really a local place for drinks... Spain. It does get a full house for dinner. The bar is interesting!
Once there was a Jazz Club, a French Bistro, a great Italian Restaurant with a beautiful garden in the back and a Vietnamese restaurant on this block. Most of all of this has changed. New places. So much like all of New York.. always changing. .


Gerry

I have mixed feelings about www.chowhound.com - the folks there are the kinds of snobs who tend to hate restaurants for the mere idea that they've been reviewed by somebody else, i.e. they think the "find" is as important as the restaurant itself. But it's a very good site for finding new ethnic places in NYC.

I think citysearch is pretty good, but lately the people have been giving good reviews to not such good places, or maybe I'm a snob!