Techology

LocalEats for the iPhone maps NYC's 100 best eats

LocalEats is a new, already popular application for the iPhone that uses GPS technology to lead users to New York City’s 100 best restaurants - starting with the ones closest to where they’re standing when the mood strikes.

It’s available on iTunes for a one-time 99-cent fee.

The top 100 is a frequently updated list, baed not on random reviewers’ whims or paid shills, but the opinions of a team of experts who use “personal experiences and surveys from local diners with reviews from top food critics, local and national awards, and notable restaurant ratings.”

The guild currently covers only Manhattan and Brooklyn but will soon expand to the other three boroughs and neighboring cities throughout the New York area.

LocalEats is an extension of www.wherethelocalseat.com and the Where the Locals Eat print dining guides published by Magellan Press.

A few other on-the-go food-finder options:

Open Table mobile
Vindigo
Mobile Yelp
Zagat to Go
UrbanSpoon mobile

August 13, 2008 3:30 PM Comments (0)

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Travel tech: Delta's $9.95 wi-fi, new gadgets and guides

Delta Airlines will soon offer wi-fi on all its domestic flights for a flat rate of $9.95 (or $12.95 on flights more than three hours,) the company said in a news release this morning. Aircell will provide the broadband service, called Gogo, will be installed this fall on delta’s 133 MD88/90 planes, with an expansion to its 200 Boeing 737, 757 and 767-300 aircraft through the first half of 2009, Delta said.

On Friday, Schmap will roll out a public beta to enable website for the iPhone. “The solution allows a website (say for a restaurant, bar or other business) to serve a map and contact details perfectly formatted for iPhone visitors,” Natalia Palacios, the vice president of marketing for Schmap Inc., told NewYorkology via e-mail. They plan to expand to others including Nokia S60, Google Android and BlackBerry.

Google Maps Mania reports that CitySearch has already been optimized for iPhones. CitySearch is a Google Maps mash-up with embedded data for restaurants, hotels, bars, shops and other services.

Check out Flavorpill’s stripped down mobile edition of its daily listings. (Found via Kathryn Yu.)

Guidespot, in public beta, offers user-written guides to New York including how to be a groupie and the Midnight Cowboy’s guide to Manhattan.

David Sifry’s OffbeatGuides is still in private beta, but once launched, it will allow users to create their own destination guides using gobs of open-source info and pictures on the web.

Guideal is a new ite that allows travelers to find local guides at their destinations. The site currently offers a free Financial District tour.

Gridskipper also directs readers to TripWolf, a “a Myspace-meets-Lonely Planet” travel guide site.

You can already sign up for the MTA’s list of weekly planned subway service disruptions and coming in the fall, you’ll be able to sign up for the unplanned snafus, according to the Daily News.

The MTA also operates Trip Planner, which gets about 10,000 users a day, has recently added Navteq Map Data and Microsoft Virtual Earth, the MTA said.

Read the rest of this entry

August 5, 2008 6:55 AM Comments (0)

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No lines at TKTS Brooklyn; daily availability by e-mail

July 24, 2008 9:27 AM Comments (0)

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Brookhaven to open ion collider, nanomaterials center

July 22, 2008 10:30 AM Comments (0)

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NYC hotel deals, openings, construction and wi-fi

HotelChatter flags a great booking bargain: Quikbook has quality NYC hotels for under $200.

Tablet Hotels current NYC offers include 6 Columbus from $255, Bryant Park Hotel from $289 and SoHo House from $525.

The Standard, "coming soonish" offers lovely eye candy courtesy its webcam (right.)

Thompson LES hopes to open July 22, according to HotelChatter.com.

Morgans plans to reopen September 16 after renovations with rooms from $599, according to the hotel's website.

There are five potential new hotels on tap for the Gowanus Canal neighborhood already home to Hotel Le Bleu, the Holiday Inn Express and the Comfort Inn, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

Bloomberg quotes a Lodging Econometrics report that says 55 hotels are in the works for Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and New Jersey's Hudson County.

A Smith Travel Research study found that 91 percent of hotels surveyed now offer wi-fi and that only 15 percent of them are charging for Internet access, the Associated Press reports. bad news for the rich: "charges for Internet access were most common at more expensive properties."

You can get a $30 TV dinner at the Loews Regency Hotel, according to the New York Times.

The NYC City Council wants to bump up the hotel tax to 8 percent, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg says no. "International tourism is down throughout our country something like 17 percent. It is up 9 percent in New York. Killing the golden goose is not a smart thing to do," he's quoted in the NY Sun.

June 24, 2008 2:22 PM Comments (0)

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Free philharmonic convergence in Central Park

Central Park tonight (weather permitting) will host two free concerts.

The New York Philharmonic will kick off its free concerts in the park series at 8 p.m. with selections from Shostakovich,Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Sousa. Fireworks follow.

On the weather permitting matter, you can sign up for a concert advisory from NY Phil and they'll send a message to your phone later today.

(Update: At 7:15 this message went out: "It's almost time! Tonight's NY Philharmonic concert on Central Park's Great Lawn is still scheduled to begin at 8 pm.")

Elsewhere in the park, the Naumberg Bandshell tonight at 7:30 p.m. hosts the Brooklyn Philharmonic playing Stravinsky, Mozart and Beethoven.

Other upcoming Naumberg Bandshell concerts:

July 8 - Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players
July 22 - Sandra Rivera - Flamenco
August 5 - Naumburg Orchestra

Image source: Naumberg Concerts

Earlier: NYC's (mostly free) summer concerts and film series

June 24, 2008 2:11 PM Comments (0)

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Military airspace to open for Memorial Day weekend

Just like they did for the November/December holidays, the U.S. Transportation Department today said they will open the East Coast military airspace to commercial airlines for Memorial Day weekend.

Elsewhere in the airports. ...

The Port Authority will spend $20 million to study the redevelopment of JFK's Terminals 2 and 3, which are both occupied by Delta, Crain's reports.

They're also sending $28 million for more security barries at Newark and LaGuardia, according to the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, British Airways said it will spend $30 million on an 18-month upgrade of its terminal at JFK. BA's already opened a new Todd English’s Bonfire restaurant a Terminal 7, and Elemis spa has replaced Molton Brown there.

Air traffic controllers say there have been eight incidents at Newark Liberty where "pilots have misinterpreted departure instructions from controllers and have had to correct course since December, when the Federal Aviation Administration began allowing planes to 'fan out' in different directions on takeoff to move flights faster from the congested hub.

There is now a webpage that will predict airport security wait times for NYC's four area airports -- JFK, Newark, LaGuardia and Stewart in the Hudson Valley.

You can also sign up for airport alerts for JFK, Newark or LaGuardia. Alerts go out when weather delay exceeds 120 minutes, if parking lots are full, or if AirTrain service is interrupted.

JetBlue is adding a route between JFK and Nantucket, Mass. However, they're not going to LAX.

For a glimpse of NYC's aviation history, see Nathan Kensinger's pictures of Floyd Bennett Airfield - the city's original municipal airport.

American Airlines will start charging $15 per checked bag and people are already talking about boycotting the world's largest airline.

Picture source: British Airways

May 22, 2008 3:54 PM Comments (0)

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New Time Machine offers flashback to bridge's debut

May 22, 2008 3:13 PM Comments (0)

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LimoLiner sees demand rise, plans Hartford service

While BoltBus and MegaBus are preparing to duke it out with their $1 bus routes out of New York City, the high-end LimoLiner is seeing its own uptick in business while holding its own with its $89 one-way fare between Manhattan and Boston, Peter Pescatore, the company's CEO, said in an interview today with NewYorkology.

LimoLiner's six vehicles are operating above 60 percent capacity and the company plans to add extra service to Hartford in September. With only 28 seats, each LimoLiner amenities include satellite TV and radio, complimentary snacks and drinks served by an attendant, reclining leather-seats, sockets and plugs at every seat, cell-phone signals and two separate wi-fi bubbles with "very robust broadband strength signals," Pescatore said. He said the signal disappears only among Manhattan's skyscrapers and in the hills of Connecticut, but it's on and strong for 95 percent of the trip.

The fare -- (which is reduced to $80 each way if you purchase a round-trip ticket) -- will stay where it is unless gas prices rise to an unpredictable level. "When it starts to crack $5.25 for diesel fuel, toward $6, then we’ll have to talk again," he said. (Currently diesel in NY is under $4.50, according to NYStateGasPrices.com.)

The additional service to Hartford would come as a new stop between New York and Boston. It would be offered three or four times every weekday. "It would be a supplement over and above what we're doing" on the existing Boston-New York service, Pescatore said.

Unlike the upstarts that keep adding city after city, LimoLiner has been conservative since it launched in 2003. The only other route that almost makes sense in this corridor, Pescatore said, would be to add service to Washington D.C. But the train tracks into D.C. are actually of a higher quality than the Boston-to-NY stretch, giving the time advantage to Amtrak into D.C., he said. ( Limoliner's Boston to New York route is advertised as "as little as four hours.")

One not-so-conservative amenity LimoLiner hopes to add is free wine service on the last trip of the day. "But just one glass," Pescatore said. "We'd like to be able to do that."

Earlier: BoltBus selling $1 tickets between Boston and NYC
New $1 MegaBus to launch May 30 with free rides
'Luxury' bus DC2NY offers on-board wi-fi to D.C.
Limoliner touts 90 pct on-time rate, hates on airlines
LimoLiner bus to Boston upgrades onboard wi-fi

May 15, 2008 4:01 PM Comments (1)

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Momofuku Ko is NYC's 'it' restaurant of the moment

Everybody wants to go to Momofuku Ko.

To amp up the oft-unrequited love offering, there are only 12 seats in the restaurant and only two seatings a night. Reservations are taken online only, and to thwart scalpers, you must first provide your credit card number and e-mail address to create an account to merely enter the long-shot derby to secure a seat. Six days a week, the reservation form at 10 a.m. opens up all the slots for dinner six days hence. Seconds later, they're gone. (Ko is closed Tuesdays.)

Expect the competition to get even worse now that the New York Times has granted Ko three-stars.

Ko was opened March 12 in the East Village by 30-year-old David Chang, who last year was named best chef in NYC in the James Beard Awards for his Momofuku Ssäm Bar. (He also runs the nearby Momofuku Noodle Bar.)

The style of food is what Ko calls "delicious american food" and Frank Bruni of the NY Times describes as Asian-French. "You’ll love it, provided you ever get access to it," he writes. The paper isn't the first to fall for Ko.

From the Wall Street Journal review:

Mr. Chang has crafted an inventive menu filled with delightful dishes such as a plump hen's egg split open into a flood of caviar, and escargot and asparagus "lasagna" touched off with both crumbled and whipped ricotta. A simple amuse bouche featuring a miniature English muffin slathered with pork fat and topped with chives gave off a mouthwatering Sunday-brunch smell as it sizzled on the stove. Strips of soft fluke in a buttermilk sauce tinged with Sriracha, an Asian hot sauce, and filled with poppy seeds provided an incredible juxtaposition of varying tastes and textures -- crunchy, soft, milky and just slightly spicy all at once.

Over three visits, I watched as the chefs cursed, drank coffee, shouted, devoured pie, talked about cars and cursed some more. Some will find it juvenile and unpleasant, but those chefs also happen to cook. And that they do quite well.

This is food you haven't tried before.

"We charge cook’s prices� is how Chang puts it to one of the patrons at the bar. He is standing with the rest of his cooks, who look the way top-line restaurant cooks usually do, which is to say pallid and harried, with assorted random baseball caps on their heads and their sleeves rolled up to give their burn marks full display. The first impression you get at Momofuku Ko, in fact, is that this is a kind of kitchen slave’s revolt, an operation run by hypergifted line cooks for the benefit of their downtrodden, misunderstood, back-of-the-house brethren.

May 7, 2008 10:30 AM Comments (0)

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